Andy MacNae MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  With the new year comes the new year’s honours list. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my friend and constituent Barry Hyde on being awarded the British empire medal for his exceptional voluntary contribution to our community in Rossendale and Darwen? Barry, and thousands of volunteers like him, are at the heart of our community. Will my right hon. Friend agree to a general debate on the value of the voluntary sector to our society?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I will touch on this later, but I feel that devolution and local government reorganisation create a huge opportunity to ensure new levels of co-operation between authorities, and we should have no hard borders when it comes to road safety. Again, the conclusion we reach is that we need action to prevent deaths and injuries, yet when communities raise their concerns and real-world experience with the county council and the police, they are told that the KSI—killed or seriously injured—data does not meet the threshold for speed cameras and other meaningful interventions.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. This is a hugely important issue and, as in many other areas, we know the solutions. Fantastic work is done by organisations such as Active Travel England that detail the solutions, yet our current or past funding structures make it incredibly difficult. I am campaigning in our constituency for a safe path to a school, yet I find there are essentially no dedicated funding opportunities to meet that very obvious and stark need. This is an absolutely crucial area. I mentioned active travel, but there is also the question of older people. Residents in social housing along Newchurch Road in Rossendale feel trapped in their estate because there is literally nowhere safe to cross the road near them to reach the amenities they need. In 2023, there were 1,624 road deaths in Great Britain and 132,977 casualties in total. Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists still make up a disproportionate share of those killed or seriously injured on UK roads. Department for Transport estimates suggest that the annual cost of reported road collisions is around £43 billion. We cannot afford any of these costs, so what do we do about it? We know the basic principles, and we have touched on them in the debate, with many Members raising them brilliantly. Many local authorities have adopted strategies based around vision zero, which is an approach originally adopted in countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands. It emphasises that no level of death or serious injury is acceptable on the roads, and it is focused on prevention, protection and post-collision response, coupled with evidence-based targets and robust safety performance indicators. We know that such approaches can be effective and save a great deal of money over the long term, but as we have seen and heard, there seems to be a huge gap between strategy and practical implementation. If we want to be serious about tackling this issue, we must move towards a truly proactive, community-led approach to road safety that is informed by statistics and not led by them. In such a model, rather than claiming that a centrally held database knows better, we trust the instincts, experiences and wishes of those who use the roads every day. Instead of waiting around until enough people have been hurt to merit an intervention, we proactively identify high-risk areas, and we act. An excellent example of that approach in action can be seen in the Netherlands. Over the past decade, both Rotterdam and the Hague have been using an algorithm to determine the likelihood of crashes on their roads. The model considers a range of factors, including past crashes, traffic flow, the features of the road, and the presence of on-road parking. From that, it creates a risk rating for each road. Crucially, this rating informs, rather than leads, the local authorities’ decisions. Community experience and input are a key factor in the decision-making process. The ratings are combined with an analysis of the volumes and severity of complaints the authorities receive regarding specific roads. Out of this community-led, data-informed model, the local authorities choose to proactively intervene to protect their citizens.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman—indeed, that is the main subject that I will try to focus on today. It is hugely important that we listen to our communities, because in the end, not only do our communities know best, but they are the ones who experience the consequences of these decisions. Burnley Road is very heavily used by large commercial vehicles, and there have been numerous close calls with those vehicles as well. Residents see them speeding or travelling in convoy, too often with their driver on a mobile phone. This is a massive concern around the local primary school, which—like many in Rossendale and Darwen—is sited directly on the main road. Last year, two big wagons managed to crash into each other just outside the school. Narrow pavements and a lack of safe crossing areas further increase the risk, and it is hardly a surprise that many parents are reluctant to let their kids walk even a short distance to school. I cannot think of anyone who rides a bike there.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Again, I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. The role of communities is absolutely vital.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a hugely important issue about the regulation of commercial vehicles, and the level of responsibility that companies and employers take for their drivers is a crucial part of this debate. To return to the story of Burnley Road in Rossendale, I have described the various instances of close calls, and when we bring all this together, the obvious conclusion that residents reach, including myself, is that without further action further deaths and serious injuries are inevitable. The great fear we have is that everyone can see this coming, and when it comes and there has been no action, I think we will all feel that we have failed.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes that vital point extremely well. I will touch on it again later, but young drivers are an important topic that merits a debate in its own right. On feeling safe or unsafe on roads and the impact of that, we can take the example of active travel. The biggest reason why people do not walk or cycle to work or school is concern over road safety. This forces people to travel by car, with all the impacts that brings and accentuating all the issues we are talking about.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I agree fully with my hon. Friend, and there is no conflict between a vision zero approach and the community-led approach I am talking about. The issue is that while vision zero has been adopted by many local authorities, the implementation falls far short of the intent. It is therefore a question of finding the appropriate implementation and delivery mechanisms, rather than just rehashing the strategy. As well as the Netherlands model I mentioned, similar preventive work has been pioneered by researchers using automatically collected data from car sensors to identify dangerous sections of roads. That is interesting, because it collects data that key success indicator stats do not highlight. They collate real-world data where cars harshly and suddenly brake. These models have proven effective in predicting areas of danger, and such systems could be used to proactively examine hotspots before collisions occur, taking account of near misses and validation experiences with communities such as ours.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Happy new year, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the chance to have this debate, and I thank the Minister for her attendance and for her work on tackling this issue, including through the upcoming road safety strategy. I requested the debate because our current approach to road safety is in desperate need of overhaul. Although a few local authorities have robust and innovative approaches to road safety, too many lack the resources or political will to implement proactive safety measures, which is increasingly making road safety a postcode lottery. Too often, safety interventions come as a response to collisions, rather than as proactive measures to prevent them. We do not listen to our communities and have failed to invest and to learn from international best practice. As a result, progress in reducing road deaths has largely plateaued in recent years. The UK has passed a grim and shaming milestone: 500,000 people have died on the roads in Great Britain since records began in 1926. That is more than the number of UK citizens killed as a result of warfare in the same period, including in the second world war. I am well aware that this is a complex and multi-dimensional issue to which we cannot do justice in such a short debate, so rather than trying to address every aspect of road safety, I will instead focus on a couple of linked aspects that are of particular concern to my Rossendale and Darwen constituents—specifically, speeding and issues related to large commercial vehicles. Rossendale and Darwen is a constituency of A roads running down valleys, with relatively few alternative routes, and most residential and commercial development extends along those lines. I live off Burnley Road in Bacup, and the lived experience of residents along that road serves to highlight most of the issues I want to raise today. Ask anyone who lives on Burnley Road and they will tell you that speeding is endemic. There have been serious injuries and fatalities, but more fundamentally, residents will cite numerous close calls and the fear they generate. For example, one house on a bend in the road has now been hit by speeding vehicles three times. In one case, a vehicle impacted on a spot where a pedestrian had been standing just seconds before, and when we lived on the main road, a car judged to be speeding at over 100 mph hit my wife’s car with such force that it was lifted up and landed on mine—that was in a 30 mph zone. There are many more stories like those; indeed, just this morning, constituents contacted me about a particularly serious close call, which I cannot detail now because it may go to court. To compound this, the road is very heavily used by large commercial vehicles.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. That is the essence of what we are talking about. Given that average speed data is a blunt tool anyway, we should ask ourselves who knows best: the people who live on that road and experience it every single day, or someone sitting looking at an algorithm in county hall far away? As politicians and representatives of our constituents, the answer that we should give is that the community knows best. We should put in systems to support their everyday lived experience, not the other way around. Secondly—and this point is linked to the first—we have to use the opportunities presented by devolution and local government reorganisation to embed best practice, including improving information sharing between authorities regarding the availability of new and emerging road safety technologies. Thirdly, we must address the barriers to proactive implementation and enforcement measures, particularly average speed cameras. Fourthly, we have to develop a sustainable funding model based on bringing back netting off. Fifthly, we must make companies fully responsible for the actions of their drivers on public roads. Sixthly, we need a genuine safe system approach to road and pavement design to protect pedestrians and cyclists. Finally, we need to address accentuating factors via advanced safety and vehicle safety regulations and develop approaches to protect young drivers.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I will—it would be a pleasure.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  Absolutely, and those committees feel particularly vulnerable and under threat. The issue is that mixture of rural roads coupled with the speed limits and then compact villages sitting along those roads, with those changes in road conditions.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley).

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  There is no doubt that speed limits are a crucial part of this work, as long as they are targeted and appropriate. However, I cite the need for effective enforcement, because if people feel that there are no consequences from breaking those speed limits, they will be broken. Enforcement is a crucial part of the consideration. Returning to average speed cameras, I urge the Minister to consider how sharing best practice between authorities could be improved. As the College of Policing noted, and as I and colleagues have seen all the time, there is a significant variation in the methods used to implement average speed cameras and assess their validity. Many authorities are unaware of the significant cost saving measures that have been pioneered over the last decade and the new technologies that exist. To take one example, we were told by Lancashire county council that a relatively small average speed system on one key road in Rossendale was unviable as it would cost many millions to implement and maintain, yet when we approached a Home Office-approved supplier recommended by another local authority seen to be a pioneer in the area, we were given a quote of £800,000 for not just that scheme, but three others that together covered all the key risk areas in Rossendale. That huge disparity demonstrates not only how funding might be used inefficiently, but how local authorities are unnecessarily being held back from implementing schemes by an out-of-date view of their costs. We need to recognise that cost is a genuine factor and that funding models under the previous Government were wholly inadequate, with road safety budgets squeezed alongside other local authority budgets. Under the last Labour Government, we had a system of netting off road fines, which helped to fund road safety enforcement activities. That should be reviewed as a possible funding stream to pay for road safety improvements, increasing policing numbers and making the best use of new and existing technology to reduce road risk. With increased information sharing, clarity over the costs of such schemes and hypothecated funds, there is significant potential to reduce the obstacles to enforcement that local authorities believe they face. In addition to speed reduction methods, major gains can be made through improving pavements and creating cycle lanes through a genuine safe-system approach. Shockingly, of all road deaths in 2023, 25% were pedestrians, with cyclists accounting for 5%. Despite many local vision zero strategies, our road safety design evidently fails to protect those vulnerable users. I urge the Minister to use the upcoming strategy to encourage councils to meet their ambitions with action, utilising support from Active Travel England and genuinely adopting safe system approaches. That requires proactive interventions, whether through establishing clearer and protected cycle lanes, constructing safe footways or building new traffic lights and crossings where needed. Another key area that we can tackle is the safety of commercial vehicles, as we have touched on. As I mentioned, there are schools in my constituency that border dangerous roads that are frequently used by large commercial vehicles. Due to the force of impact, HGVs are the second most dangerous vehicles on the road, killing 6.9 people per billion passenger miles—significantly higher than the comparative figure of 1.6 for cars. Considering that, it is completely unacceptable that in 2023, 36% of lorries were seen to exceed the speed limit. Drivers often have minimal oversight and training from companies, which have weak corporate safety standards. We must proactively recognise and respond to the heightened risk that such vehicles pose. One crucial step could be to incentivise companies to maintain high safety standards in their fleet, be that through offering lower insurance to companies that demonstrate best practice, naming and shaming companies that do not, or even making companies fully liable for work-related collisions. Alongside that, a variety of other proactive, low-cost methods could be used to improve the safety of our roads—for instance, tightening the regulations on tyre safety. Poor tyres accentuate the impact of speeding or poor driving. Over the past decade, an average of 182 people have been killed or seriously injured per year because of poor tyre conditions. MOTs flag over two million cars with sub-standard tyres each year, 1 million of which are so poor that they are considered actively dangerous. Given the improvements in tyre technology, coupled with the fact that the highest proportion of serious incidents occur in the winter months, there is room for the Minister to consider mandating that all new vehicles be equipped with all-season tyres. More generally, there are significant opportunities offered by safe vehicle technologies, which can be embedded through advanced vehicle safety regulations. Let me touch on a point raised earlier about driver education, particularly protecting young drivers. This is a complex area, which needs a debate in its own right, but given that 16% of car driver fatalities are younger drivers, there is no doubt that this area really needs attention. Finally, as we have touched on, increasing devolution is also central to ensuring that communities’ voices are heard. In places such as Lancashire, road safety interventions are still determined on a county level. Officials and county councillors are often very far removed from the roads and communities impacted by their decisions. When this responsibility is held on a unitary level, the voices of communities are louder, and decision makers are much closer to the area in question. Given the widespread local government reorganisation coming in this Parliament, the Minister has a significant opportunity to establish best practice in new unitary and combined authorities. I urge her to seize this unique opportunity, and to provide meaningful support and guidance to these emerging authorities. To wrap up, considering the reactive and inefficient approach to road safety that the Minister inherited from the previous Government, I urge her to utilise her upcoming road safety strategy to move the country towards a preventive, community-led and statistics-informed model of road safety, alongside a sustainable funding approach. Central to that approach, I call for the following measures to be given detailed consideration within the road safety strategy: first, ending the safety postcode lottery via a robust, mandated national road safety strategy, based on a community-led, data-informed, safe system approach and, within that, prioritising lived experience and perceptions of safety over arms-length data.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I agree entirely. Again, it is devastating for communities to raise those issues repeatedly, stridently and sometimes desperately, yet feel that they are not being heard. The message they get back is, in effect, “We have to wait for someone to get killed before we do anything”, which is surely is not the message our communities should be hearing. As well as Burnley Road in Rossendale, I could tell stories about Todmorden Road, Burnley Road East through Whitewell Bottom, Market Street in Whitworth, Bury Road in Edenfield, Newchurch Road in Waterfoot, Bolton Road, Sunnyhurst Lane, Hollins Grove and Pole Lane in Darwen. In each case, residents see close calls day by day, but are told that the statistics do not merit action, and even when they do, they are simply told there is no money. This approach is nonsensical and out of line with even the county council’s own adopted vision zero strategy and is decades behind those employed internationally. Ultimately it costs lives and money. Beyond this, unsafe roads have far-reaching impacts affecting an area’s sense of place and identity. They take lives, devastate families and shake up communities. Roads felt to be unsafe have a significant impact on the day-to-day lives of people living near them. Residents feel less able to get around, uncomfortable on their own doorstep and cut off from each other.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. She has framed her example tremendously well—the greatest fear that most of us have is that combination of primary schools, unsafe roads and large vehicles. Sadly, that can only end one way.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Road Safety · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for making that point. How we value road safety interventions must recognise the full gamut of those impacts. Far too often, we use narrow measures of cost-benefit. Emergency response, impacts on wider infrastructure and the general feeling of being unsafe are hugely important considerations. I have tried to highlight a few approaches to identifying areas of risk proactively before collisions occur. Again, we know how to do this. With those risks identified, we also have a range of effective, advanced interventions that we can utilise to reduce the risk of incidents. Average speed cameras have been proven to be particularly effective, yet due to fears about cost and a lack of awareness of advanced technology, many authorities have been reluctant to implement them. Looking at the evidence, a review by the RAC Foundation found a 36.4% reduction in serious or fatal injuries at sites with average speed cameras installed, with a further 16% reduction in incidents of all severities. In some cases, the installation of speed cameras has reduced incidents by up to 86%. With Lancashire county council valuing the cost of a road-related fatality at £2 million—I do not know how it gets to that figure, but none the less that is the figure being used—it is no surprise that effective safety measures like these save the Government money in the long term. The College of Policing has found that through a reduction in medical treatment and repair fees, the financial benefits of these schemes exceed their costs by 3:1. On the point made by the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), that is on a narrow basis, perhaps not recognising some of the wider impacts. The figure only increases when we look at the benefits beyond five years. I urge the Minister to use the upcoming strategy to stress the significant long-term benefits of proactively implementing speed reduction schemes with average speed cameras.

• 16 Dec 2024 · English Devolution · Hansard source

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  I hugely welcome the White Paper. For us who are in the frontline trying to deliver services to our residents under the dysfunctional two-tier system that exists in Lancashire, this is a breath of fresh air. It is exactly what we have been requesting for years. Does the Minister agree that now is the time for Lancashire leaders to put aside short-term personal and political considerations, not to wait for the Bill to be published, and to work with urgency in drawing up proposals for new local government structures that are focused on the needs of residents and, ultimately, bring the highest level of devolution to Lancashire?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Small businesses are at the heart of our local economies, and they are crucial to our ambition to deliver sustained growth. Last weekend, it was great to meet so many inspiring small businesses in Rossendale and Darwen during Small Business Weekend. I was also privileged to attend the Rossendale business awards, which was a great celebration of entrepreneurial and community spirit. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the business award winners? Bear with me, as there were quite a few: Bacup Museum, Baha Accessories, D.O.G. Grooming, The Chubby Duck, Rossendale Radio, Carvansons, SolvAssist, Kelsea Bennett, Be You Lifestyle, Design Hut, Whitworth leisure centre, Olive Branch, The Ashcroft, Dansworks, Unscripted—

• 5 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In the light of today’s very important announcements about the mission milestones, could we hear a bit about the important work of the mission boards, which have led us to this point?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government · Hansard source

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  I welcome each and every one of the milestones, and the real, tangible difference that they will make to the lives of my residents in Rossendale and Darwen. Each is a crucial step in the process of mission delivery. I also welcome the recognition that to get them met, we need to do government differently. Devolution and a move away from command-and-control government represents a real opportunity to enable more effective and efficient delivery, and perhaps even restore some of the trust in politics that was so broken and destroyed by the Conservative party. In Lancashire, we have been held back by an outdated two-tier local government system. Does the Minister agree that it is time for Lancashire leaders to come together to grasp the huge opportunity that devolution offers?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Improving Public Transport · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing this important debate. It was a pleasure to hear the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer)—wonderful stuff. As many Members have done, I massively welcome the debate. It is a hugely important topic. Public transport is vital to not only the connectivity and economic growth of our communities, but the wellbeing of our residents. For so many people who cannot afford a car, public transport is a lifeline, allowing them to get to work, to school, to see friends and family, and to visit doctors and hospitals. Without good, reliable public transport links, our communities suffer, as so many sadly do today in my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen. It is vital that we get to grips with this issue, so I am encouraged by the work that the Government have done so far to begin the work of rebuilding our public transport links after the stark disinterest of the previous Government. I welcome the trans-Pennine route upgrade, which will ensure that our key towns in the north are better connected, with faster and more frequent trains. With that greater connectivity and mobility, we can begin to address the constraints that have held back our northern economy for many years. Alongside that, I am pleased to see the commitment to a further £650 million for transport links outside of cities. That is much needed, with lines like those serving Darwen in my constituency crying out for improvement as they suffer constant cancellations and delays. I also hope that this will be an opportunity to address left-behind areas, such as Rossendale, where one in four of my residents commute into Manchester and yet we are the only local authority area in the north without any sort of commuter rail link. That results in 79% of journeys being by car, with all the resultant congestion and air pollution. The City Valley rail link proposed by our borough council and county councils would be an absolute game changer. It would take half a million cars off the road and enable up to 5,000 jobs. To me, it is the definition of a no-brainer and an example of exactly the sort of connectivity issues that we need to address if we are to genuinely deliver on our growth mission. Similarly, I was delighted to see the Government’s recent commitment to £1 billion of funding to support our local bus networks, with areas in my constituency receiving millions of pounds in support. We can now begin the vital work of strengthening our bus routes, many of which have faced years of unending cuts. In my constituency, villages such as Edgeworth, Edenfield and Weir have long felt cut off, and we need to judge the value of restoring those connections for not just short-term passenger numbers, but with consideration of all the social, wellbeing and economic benefits that come from connecting remote communities with the services, training and employment opportunities they need. I recently wrote to Lancashire county council and Blackburn with Darwen council calling on the leadership to work with me to ensure the new funding is used to address the long-standing connectivity issues, and I reiterate that call now. In Rossendale and Darwen, the bus issues are compounded by cross-border challenges, and I am pleased to see other colleagues recognising that fundamental issue. With many key services crossing between Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, the local government areas have not traditionally worked well together, and we have suffered from that lack of joined-up thinking. We cannot discuss improving transport links without discussing improvements to local authority structures. As we are seeing in Manchester with the Bee Network, an empowered mayor and an effective combined authority can turbocharge the development of efficient, reactive, joined-up and innovative transport infrastructure that serves residents and grows the economy. Yet, in counties such as Lancashire, with an out-of-date two-tier structure and no mayor, we lack a strong voice and a coherent, joined-up transport strategy. That is why there is a pressing need, central to any efforts to tangibly improve public transport, to pursue fully fledged devolution deals for every area of the country. Only with empowered local leaders working together to quickly recognise local needs and opportunities can we have the sort of public transport system that our country and my residents in Rossendale and Darwen need.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  As someone who lives on a farm, which is surrounded by farms, and whose family has farmed, and diversified, for generations, I add my voice to all those who have paid tribute to farmers for the crucial role they play in our economy. Many other hon. Members have said it more eloquently than I can, but let us all recognise the vital role of farms in our economy. In common with colleagues, I met with farmers in the post-Budget period. Frankly, I was expecting a pretty hard time and there were some robust discussions, but they were also civil, constructive, informative and understanding. I pay tribute to the farmers and the NFU representatives who took that approach to the discussions. What most surprised me was how quickly the discussions immediately pivoted to the sense of anger, abandonment and betrayal that arose from the past 14 years, which have decimated the industry. Fellow Members have described in detail—the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) described the situation particularly well—the betrayal of Brexit, the spiralling energy and feed prices, the spiralling land costs, and the terrible trade deals that opened the doors to poor-quality imports, which undermined the very farming markets that Conservative Members claim to value. As we have heard already, that dire management resulted in over 12,000 farms and agribusinesses going out of business since 2010. That is a terrible, shocking, shameful legacy. For Conservative Members to now present themselves as the champions of farmers is outrageous. They have used the word “arrogance”, but that is what they have displayed—a refusal to reference, understand or learn from their own history and failings.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  A range of reliefs, benefits and rights create an ability, in most cases, to avoid tax. Let us take the seven-year rule. It is a tapered rule, so after four years, the liability drops from 20% to 12%. Also—this has not been mentioned much today—inheritance tax insurance is available. Particularly for younger farmers who wish to gift those assets to the next generation, inheritance tax insurance effectively mitigates any risk of death inside seven years. I recognise that for older farmers that can become quite expensive; none the less, it is a mitigation that is open to anybody. I recognise the issue of gifts with reservation, but that is my central point. It is not just me saying this; the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that with sensible, realistic and relatively straightforward estate planning, estates worth considerably more than £2 million will remain exempt from tax. There are many measures that can be taken. However, in this context, one of the great benefits of having detailed discussions with farmers is the ability to recognise the practicalities and the detail. By talking to Becki, who runs a multi-generational farm in Darwen, I came to recognise that there are very good arguments for a degree of flexibility around gifting rights and timescales for the over-80s. It is a perfectly good argument for the provision of professional and detailed tax advice to allow genuine family farms to take full advantage of all the reliefs that are available. I genuinely believe that well-advised true family farms can, with a plan to pass those farms between the generations, mitigate or completely avoid any liability from these taxes. I will finish by going back to the main point that Members have made: farms do not make enough money. Turning things around, getting back to a situation— [ Interruption. ] We need to get back to a situation where farms can succeed as businesses and where we bring costs down, not just raise prices as was suggested. We need to bring energy costs down and make bills are more stable, use the Government’s purchasing power to buy locally produced food, protect farmers from being undercut through bad trade deals, and remove risk through a rural crime strategy and the floods resilience taskforce. Our plan for farms is supported by £5 billion, which is the biggest investment in farms in generations. Let us stop the scaremongering, get behind British farming and reverse 14 years of decline.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?