Alistair Carmichael MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for the Scotch Whisky Industry · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is speaking about exports. We know the damage done to the Scotch whisky industry when we last suffered tariffs as a consequence of US trade policy—nothing to do with President Trump, it has to be said, but due to an old trade dispute. Surely this is the point at which the Government should be thinking ahead and putting a strategy in place to help the industry should, heaven forfend, we find ourselves back to that place as a consequence of the new regime in the White House?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister not understand that by penalising family farming at the same time as offering the 20% threshold, he leaves a situation in which purchasing land is still an attractive option for those who wish to shelter their wealth? He penalises those he wants to protect while protecting those he seeks to penalise.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  I do not think I can listen to many more people say that. When I questioned the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee before Christmas, he specifically said that what rich people do with their money within the rules was a matter for them, and that the policy did not have a target audience. Does that not point to an inconsistency in messaging among the Treasury and Downing Street?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  As Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, I have not been short of opportunities to speak about this issue in recent months, so I shall keep my remarks short so that others might place their constituents’ concerns on the record. I should declare that I am a farmer and landowner. That is entered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough), introducing the debate, said that what is necessary now is meaningful engagement with the Government. He is absolutely right. May I say to the Minister who is replying to that debate that that engagement has to come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer herself? For her not yet to have met with representatives of the farming unions from across the four nations of this country is unacceptable, and that has to change soon. Farmers are not, as the Secretary of State said to the Select Committee on 19 November, wrong in their understanding of this issue. What is wrong are the numbers on which the Government have based the policy that they have brought forward. It will affect many more farmers and estates than is currently believed or admitted by the Treasury. As Jeremy Moody said when he gave evidence to the Committee, this is a policy that penalises those whom the Government want to protect while protecting those whom they say they want to penalise. The whole policy needs to be paused and reconsidered. It needs to be done because no proper consideration was given in the first instance to the full range of unintended consequences. In that regard, I have one question that I want the Minister to answer today: before the policy announcement was made, what consideration was given in the Treasury to the very particular position of tenants in Scotland who hold their tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991? Essentially, the situation there is that a 1991 tenancy gives rise to an asset that is a chargeable asset for taxation purposes, which survives death; but because they are tenants, they do not have an asset that they can sell on in order to pay their tax bill. That seems to me to be a point of fundamental inequity. If Ministers did not consider that before they put their proposals in the Budget, what else was given insufficient consideration? There is a need to reform inheritance tax. There are good things that, with proper consideration, we could do for agriculture, but in order to do that, the policy must first of all be paused, and the proper engagement that we have spoken of needs to happen.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 6 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  May I take the Secretary of State back to the subject of illegal meat imports? On Tuesday the Select Committee was told that at Dover this work, which covers only 20% of arrivals, is being done in live lanes, despite the fact that there is a border control post at Dover that is sitting unused, and the funding for Dover Port Health Authority is due to expire at the end of March. Can we at the very least sort out the financing of this for the next financial year?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T10. I thank the Minister with responsibility for energy consumers for agreeing to convene a roundtable tomorrow on the subject of radio teleswitching switch-off at the end of June. The problem will be particularly acute in communities like mine; we are well behind the rest of the country when it comes to smart meter roll-out. When she comes to the meeting, will she have a target for getting us the number of smart meters that we need?

• 30 Jan 2025 · Local Post Offices · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) on taking the initiative to secure time for this debate and on the way in which he opened it. We are all familiar with the old maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I have lost count of the number of post office debates I have taken part in over the years, and it seems to me that as far as post offices are concerned, the maxim that has governed the thinking of Governments of all colours is, “If it ain’t broke, keep reforming it until it is.” The fundamental problem is that there has been an incoherence of approach within Departments. On the one hand, we have heard—I suspect we may hear similar things from the Minister today—Ministers stand at the Dispatch Box saying that the post office is a brilliant institution and it can be the front office or front desk for Government services in communities across the country. The next day, we will have another Minister standing at the Dispatch Box telling us that access to Government services will become digital by default. Unless we decide exactly what role we expect our post offices to perform in our communities, we cannot be surprised when they fail to thrive and then wither in the way that they are doing. It is more than 20 years now since the Department for Work and Pensions thought it could save money by driving people away from getting pensions and other benefits from their local post office. Doubtless that was a saving for the Department for Work and Pensions, but it has just meant that the Department for Business and Trade or whatever we call it these days has had to put more money in through Government subsidies. I hesitate to predict the future in politics at all these days, but one day, when we have finally turned the key to lock the last post office in the country, some bright spark in Downing Street somewhere will come up with a policy paper saying that we should have a hub in every community where people can access Government services and meet their postal needs, their banking needs and all the rest of it, and in that way we will end up reinventing what we have reformed to the point of destruction. The Post Office and how it interacts with the sub-postmasters has not always helped in that respect, including the innovations that it has brought, such as the pick-up and drop-off initiatives. In my constituency, it is not the sub-post offices that are given the contract to do the pick-up and drop-off points. If the Post Office at the heart is not able to support sub-postmasters at the frontline, we frankly cannot be surprised if they start to fail. In particular, I want to talk about the Post Office’s approach to the closure of Crown branches. We see that in my constituency, where the last Crown post office in Kirkwall is listed for closure. The way that has been done by the Post Office has been nothing short of a disgrace. It has been totally lacking in respect for its employees and the communities that the post office is there to serve. At a time when we might have hoped that the Post Office would want to demonstrate a change of culture—for reasons we have debated often enough—we see it still behaving in this way in my community. It makes me think that all the fine words about changed culture at the top of the Post Office are simply meaningless weasel words. I have seen similar situations before. We lost the Crown post office in Lerwick in Shetland a few years ago. It was taken out and folded into a local newsagent service. For all the promises given about maintaining services, in fact the community was left with a much inferior service at the end of the day, despite the best efforts of the newsagent who got the contract. If we are to see these changes in Kirkwall, we need to know first of all that the same range of services will still be available as there are from a Crown post office. That includes vehicle licensing, currency exchange and passport checking—all those things should still be available. Just as important as the range of services is the question of the physical infrastructure. People want a stand-alone post office to offer a level of service of the sort they get with a Crown post office, especially when we are encouraging banking into them. That is a highly personal service for many people. They do not want to be doing that next to somebody buying a tin of beans and their weekly paper. The size and availability of any post office that is to replace the one that the Post Office wants to close in Kirkwall is critical. We do not want people queueing around the block at Christmas when the post office is at its busiest, standing in the rain, sleet and snow to get their postage done. The size, the range of services and the quality of service have to be at the heart of anything that comes from the Post Office by way of revision. That is the basis on which we in my community will be judging any proposals that it comes forward with.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Local Post Offices · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the manner in which the Post Office allowed the information about the closure of directly managed branches to come into the public domain was unacceptable? What is he doing to ensure that the Post Office treats communities with better respect than that in the future?

• 30 Jan 2025 · Medicinal Cannabis · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman touches on something that piqued my interest in this subject 20 years ago, when my constituent the late Biz Ivol, who was a sufferer from multiple sclerosis, told me that the only relief she got from multiple sclerosis was by her own—shall we say—non-prescribed use of cannabis. She described multiple sclerosis to me as being not just stiffness and spasms, but like somebody was pulling barbed wire down inside her spine. When somebody is feeling that sort of pain and discomfort, surely it is incumbent on us all to find a way, through medicine, to give them some relief if we possibly can.

• 30 Jan 2025 · Avian Influenza · Hansard source

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  I do not think anybody would disagree with the comments by the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) about the redevelopment of the facility at Weybridge, but I suspect that once avian influenza is in the wild bird population, as it is here, even the best facility in the world will struggle to contain it. On disease containment, I remember the absolutely heartbreaking experience of walking along beaches in Orkney and seeing dead body after dead body. Is the Minister engaging with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and other major organisations so that he can at least be aware of the impact on the wild bird population?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter before the House again. On the subject of the 500 estates, can we all agree that that only relates to the number of estates that claim under APR? It does not take account of the effect of APR and BPR together. In fact, BPR valuations are taken at book value, not at market value, so the number of estates that are liable must inevitably be massively greater than 500.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

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  There are other options. On another day, with more time available, we might be able to look at what the tax take will be for the changes. The Secretary of State, when he gave evidence to the Select Committee, said that they were not going to be a problem because most people will avoid them. In fact, there will be opportunities for that to be the case. The underlying concern here, which the Minister has the opportunity to address, is whether the Government still adhere to the belief that there is a public policy interest in ensuring the transition of family farms down the generations. If that was the original basis on which the reliefs were introduced, and if it remains the policy objective to this day, the figures need to be looked at more carefully. The thresholds could be increased or there could be a 10-year clawback—whatever the solution may be; the industry is full of ideas. There are any number of people who will come forward with suggestions for the things that at least some people in Government say they sought to achieve by making the change. If—the Prime Minister was not very clear about this; well, he was clear that he was not bothered—the object was to avoid the super-rich using land to shelter their wealth, there are better ways of doing that. The Minister will get full co-operation from the farming unions and communities, but in order to have that, there has to be a dialogue. At the moment we are getting nothing from the Treasury. If he takes no other message back to the Treasury today, he should take this: the Chancellor must meet the farming unions.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

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  I had put in to speak, but when I saw the attendance in the Chamber, I thought I would exercise a self-denying ordinance. That seems to have been counterproductive, so I will take a couple of minutes to drill down into some of the underlying assumptions in relation to this issue. Let us bear in mind that there are three ways in which agricultural land can be passed on in succession. It can be relieved under agricultural property relief, under business property relief, or under a combination of the two. Hitherto, that has offered executry practitioners and others a range of different options. Frankly, as long as the land qualified as agricultural farming land, it did not really matter which route was taken. In fact, any value was pretty academic because there was 100% relief in any event. I suspect that is why the HMRC guidance in relation to business property relief says that for a relief claimed under BPR, the book value, if I can use that shorthand, should be used. There is then no need to have the full market value. The letter that the Chancellor sent to the Treasury Committee on 15 November last year made no reference to those estates that passed on land under BPR only. To my mind, it is almost certainly the case that a large number of other farms will be caught by the measure that have not been included in Treasury calculations. That view is reinforced today by the publication of the report by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which, as the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst) said, is a non-departmental public body of DEFRA. The body is levy funded, but the press release says that it is not for it to say whether inheritance tax should be exigible in these circumstances—it just wishes to inform the debate with its analysis. Its analysis is that 42,204 farms out of 54,938 of 50 hectares or more will be affected. That must surely give the Treasury some cause for concern, and a basis on which it could pause the change. We still have a long time to go; it will not be in the Finance Bill until October or November of this year. Where an element of doubt exists, it would surely be sensible for everyone concerned if the Treasury were to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the farming unions and others.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

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  If people are looking at a £400,000 bill, which is what they would pay on a £3 million farm, and they earn £25,000 a year, they will still struggle to make that payment in 10 years; in fact, it would be downright impossible. That is how the land gets sold.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

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  The Minister is shaking his head. I wonder whether the hon. Lady would join me in inviting him to intervene to explain why that fact is wrong.

• 23 Jan 2025 · EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to hear that those meetings are scheduled, because the review of the TCA is seen by fishing industries around the UK as an opportunity to undo some of the damage that was done by Boris Johnson at the end of the Brexit negotiations. I met the EU Commission official who will be leading the EU side of the negotiations and it is clear that she is informed of their industries’ priorities and has a plan for achieving them. The EU sees this as an important piece of work. The Minister can only do what needs to be done if he is prepared to engage with and listen to the views of our fishing industries and communities.

• 23 Jan 2025 · EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement: Fishing · Hansard source

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  12. Whether he has had recent discussions with the fishing industry on the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement.

• 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source

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  One of the witnesses before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee told us that the Government’s changes hit the people the Government say they are protecting, and protect the people the Government say they are hitting. It is difficult to improve on that analysis of what is proposed. It really does not have to be like that. There is a sensible debate to be had about reforming inheritance tax to stop the super-rich from sheltering their wealth while still protecting family farms. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has its technical consultation coming up. Why does the Minister not agree to broaden its terms, engage with the farming communities, and look for a way to protect family farms and get at those who are sheltering their wealth in land?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Before questioning the Minister, I should have reminded the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My failure to do so, for which I apologise, was inadvertent—I just got carried away with the excitement of the moment.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response · Hansard source

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  The activities of the Yantar may be an escalation, but this is not the first instance of such activity; it is almost two years since I first raised concerns about the activities of Russian vessels in the waters around Shetland. Events in Finland at Christmas show that Russia is prepared to go further, and we must show that we are determined to meet any challenge of that sort. This is a strategic threat for the United Kingdom as a whole, but it is particularly acute for our island communities, which rely on cables for digital and energy connectivity, quite apart from the pipelines serving the oil and gas industry. Will the Secretary of State speak to the energy companies and his colleagues in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and ensure that our island communities are not left as a soft target for the next escalation in this business?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Foreign Donations to UK Political Parties · Hansard source

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  10. What recent assessment the Commission has made of the adequacy of the rules on donations by non-UK citizens to political parties.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Foreign Donations to UK Political Parties · Hansard source

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  Surely, even in these febrile times, it should not be difficult to build a consensus around the proposition that foreign money should not be in British politics. Can we not get the parties together now to make the strongest possible package of reforms, rather than reacting when it is too late?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  The Minister is being very generous. Actually, the setting of the ringfence is a process that could be significantly improved by the taskforce being set up, as that would allow the Government to understand what is going on in the industry, and improved understanding could inform decisions such as the setting of the ringfence.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

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  I thank everybody who has attended. For the benefit of the Backbench Business Committee, who may run the rule over these things, we have had no fewer than 17 Members in the Chamber in the course of this debate, covering the length and breadth of the country. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) said there was unity in the message; it was almost as if we had been briefed in these matters. This allows me to place on record my appreciation—shared by all who are engaged in this issue, I am sure—of the work of the UK Marine Energy Council, RenewableUK, Scottish Renewables, and in particular, the companies that get the devices in the water. Their commitment and dedication to decarbonisation and the development of this most important sector is nothing short of inspirational. I extend my gratitude to them and everyone who has contributed today. We are not using the full amount of time that we have been allocated, so I am off to sign up the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for a Duolingo course in Italian. We may benefit from that in the future. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered Government support for the marine renewables industry.