Daisy Cooper MP: speeches

Speeches

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  This time last year, Government Ministers told us repeatedly that their No. 1 mission was growth, but after Labour’s second Budget, it is clear that growth is nowhere to be seen. The OBR makes it clear that the Budget has almost no meaningful growth measures at all. The Confederation of British Industry has concluded that the Government’s growth mission has stalled, and others say that it is positively anti-growth. We Liberal Democrats have consistently said that the Government cannot just tax their way to prosperity; they must grow their way to it. The most effective way of doing that—the single biggest growth lever that the Government could pull—is fixing our relationship with Europe. The Conservative-Reform Brexit deal has been a disaster for our country and for British business. It has left our public finances with a £90 billion Brexit black hole; the Labour Government know it, and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has just said it, but for some unfathomable reason, the Government will not just get on and fix it. We Liberal Democrats once again call on the Government to get serious about fixing our relationship with Europe. Research by the House of Commons Library shows that a better deal—a deal within the Government’s red lines, that excludes a customs union, the single market and all the rest—could raise an additional £25 billion a year in revenue. With our proposal of a bespoke UK-EU customs union, we could raise even more. Members on the Labour Benches will say, “We have all these new trade deals. We are fixing this relationship,” but once again, the OBR report from yesterday spells it out in black and white. It says that the lasting effects of Brexit more than wipe out the combined benefits of all the Government’s new trade deals. If the Government want economic sustainability, it is clear as day what they need to do. The same could be said about headroom. This time last year, we knew that Donald Trump was heading back into the White House, and we Liberal Democrats warned the Government that they had not left enough headroom to deal with the economic headwinds, which were predictable and predicted. We welcome the fact that the Government, as part of their mission to create a sustainable economy, have provided more headroom this time around, but we disagree with the way that they built it, relying on billions from unfair stealth taxes and other tax hikes on people and small businesses. That was not a fair choice; a fairer choice would have been to ask the big banks to do their bit. The Government know that if they do nothing on the big banks, taxpayers will pay out approximately £30 billion to the big banks between now and April 2031—not because of any risk that they have taken, or any loans they have made, but because of a glitch in quantitative easing. In the middle of a cost of living crisis and a cost of doing business crisis, the Government seem happy for £30 billion of taxpayers’ money to be paid out to the big banks, but we Liberal Democrats are not. That is why we have called for a windfall tax on the QE-related parts of the profits that the big banks have received, which would raise £30 billion for the taxpayer over the next five and a half years. We propose that just less than half of that money be spent on slashing energy bills by removing levies from them, but we would not lose the revenue for the insulation schemes that the Government have just axed. Some of the money could also be used to slash VAT by 5% for hospitality, attractions and visitor accommodation over the next 17 months until April 2027. That would give a boost to local economies in every single village, town and city across this country to get our economy moving again. That is the kind of growth stimulus that we Liberal Democrats would pursue. It is incredibly frustrating that the Government are not doing more for our high streets. They will say that they are looking to introduce permanently lower business rates multipliers. They may have done so, but the new, higher valuations were published this morning, and many businesses are warning that they could simply wipe out any benefit that businesses get from the lower multipliers. I saw a WhatsApp exchange between some of my pub landlords in St Albans this morning, and when one of them saw the higher valuation for their independent pub, they replied with a single word. It was the word that Boris Johnson used to describe his approach to business. I am very worried that the combined impact of higher valuations and the new multipliers could put even more of our high street businesses in jeopardy, so I ask the Government to come clean and publish the combined data as soon as possible. I hope that a Minister can tell us—if not today, I hope that they will promise to come back to the House and do so—how many businesses have been brought into paying business rates for the first time, and how many might see their business rates go up overall. If the picture is bleak, I hope that the Government will tell us what actions they will take to protect the great British high street. Small businesses also need action on energy support. Just last week, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I wrote to the Government asking Ministers to instruct the Competition and Markets Authority to launch an investigation into the lack of competition among energy suppliers, and into practices that we believe are preventing small businesses from getting the best energy deals. The Federation of Small Businesses is making the same call. This issue has to be fixed, and I hope that Ministers will look at it. On income tax, the Government have broken their promise in all but name by freezing income tax thresholds for a further three years. This policy, started by the Conservatives and continued by Labour, means that in the tax year 2030-31, British taxpayers will pay an additional £67 billion in income tax to the Treasury. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that these stealth taxes are the largest single tax-raising measure since 1979. What will the result be? Well, the OBR says that disposable income—a byword for living standards—will go down, in large part due to this tax rise. Is it any wonder that people in all income brackets simply do not feel any better off? Turning to the so-called mansion tax, we in this House all know that council tax is broken, but adding extra layers does not make it any fairer. Economists from left to right all agreed yesterday that the Government’s proposals are complicated and will cause bunching in the tax system. They are a messy compromise that does not raise very much money, and will raise none for around three years. These proposals could result in many appeals and could distort behaviour. This is not the way to fix property taxes. [ Interruption. ] The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury chunters from his seat. That was several Prime Ministers and several general elections ago. When the Liberal Democrats called for such a tax, the Conservatives wanted to stay in the EU; I think we can all agree that there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. If the Government were serious about pursuing wealth, they could make a much fairer choice and go after the big banks and the tech giants. On the tech giants, why did the Chancellor slip out a review of the digital services tax yesterday, without announcing it in the Budget? I think we all know the answer, but let me be plain: if the Government are gearing up to cut taxes for people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, while raising taxes on struggling households, that would be a massive betrayal. As for the dividend tax, the Federation of Small Businesses summed it up when it said that “Hikes to dividend tax mean the government continues to make investing in your own business one of the least tax-friendly things you can do with your money.” Fundamentally, the root problem remains. This Budget, like last year’s Budget, is nothing more than a Treasury tax grab. The Government are still yet to outline a vision for the economy and for the country, and the lack of joined-up thinking is so stark. Last year they said that they were going for growth, and then they inflicted a growth-crushing jobs tax. This summer the Government’s own pension investment review said that four in 10 people are not saving enough for retirement, but now the Government have announced a measure that the OBR says will reduce pension contributions before the commission has even had a chance to report. This is a “spend now, pay later” Budget, with pension changes and other expensive additions pushed right to the end of the forecast. Clearly that is a way to buy time for some growth to emerge, but what happens if it does not? The Government have had an opportunity to set out their path to delivering the change they promised, but I fear that they have squandered it. We Liberal Democrats wanted this to be a Budget that tackled the cost of living, that saved our high streets, and that was going to go for growth through a better deal with Europe. I am sorry to say that this Budget was botched; it was bungled; it was a missed opportunity. Whatever we call it, the bottom line is that this Budget does not deliver for the British people. I fear that the Government have run out of ideas. I fear that they are also running out of time.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  We Liberal Democrats welcome the decision by the Government to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Does the hon. Member agree that, as well as it being the right thing to do, it saves taxpayers money in the long term? We know that poverty has lasting impacts on people’s health and educational outcomes. In making the case to the British public, it would be helpful if the Government could explain the longer-term impact that poverty has for the taxpayer.

• 25 Nov 2025 · G20 and Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. If this is the end game for Putin’s illegal and murderous war, we have one chance to get it right and to safeguard the future of Ukraine and Europe. The stakes could not be higher. Many of us fear that President Trump is gearing up to betray the rights of Ukrainians, who have fought valiantly in the face of war crimes, torture and the abduction of thousands of children. The White House has tried to deny that Trump’s original 28-point plan was a Russian wish list, but that is precisely what it was. We Liberal Democrats welcome the statement from the Prime Minister that Ukraine’s sovereignty must be maintained. When the Prime Minister speaks with the coalition of the willing this afternoon, will he relay that all major parties in this House agree with him on unequivocally ruling out any proposals that would limit Ukraine’s sovereignty to defend itself now or in the future, including its right to join defence alliances such as NATO? Will the Prime Minister also offer his support and that of the coalition of the willing by joining President Zelensky for any future negotiations with President Trump, so that President Zelensky does not have to suffer the indignity of being bullied by Trump on his own once again and so that Europe can show a strong and united stand? The Prime Minister is absolutely right to request that Reform UK conducts an investigation into pro-Russian bribes. Will he also commission a second Russia report into Russian interference in our democracy? My hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) has brought forward a Bill enabling the unilateral seizure of Russian state assets in the UK. Will the Prime Minister confirm whether in his discussions with G20 partners he has secured any progress on plans to seize those frozen Russian assets, and if not, why not? Will the Prime Minister use his role as the penholder for Sudan to take the lead at the United Nations to secure and enforce a country-wide arms embargo? Finally, the Prime Minister did not mention China, despite reports that he met the Chinese premier at the G20. The apparent imminent approval of the Chinese super-embassy would be a moment of shame for this Government. Will the Prime Minister block this application and summon the Chinese ambassador to make clear that we will not accept Beijing’s efforts to spy on our Parliament, or to intimidate and harass Hongkongers in our communities?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Budget: Press Briefings · Hansard source

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  These leaks are not just Westminster tittle-tattle; they have a real impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. The cold weather has now reached all corners of Britain, and households do not know if they can afford to put the heating on, because they do not know if their taxes are going up or down or staying the same. It is just five weeks until Christmas, and our high streets are struggling with low consumer confidence. That is precisely why we Liberal Democrats have called for a windfall tax on the big banks to fund an emergency cut to people’s energy bills and a VAT cut for hospitality, visitor accommodation and attractions. However, these leaks are a symptom, not the cause; the real problem runs much deeper. The Labour Government have no vision for the country and no vision for the economy, and whatever their destination is, they are not taking the country with them. [ Interruption. ]

• 17 Nov 2025 · Budget: Press Briefings · Hansard source

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  When people and the markets do not know what the Government are trying to achieve, rumours can and do run rife. It is clear that this Budget is more leaky than our crumbling hospitals. I should add that the confected outrage from the Conservatives is slightly absurd, because their key Budget announcements were often leaked in advance—in at least one case, almost word for word. Perhaps this House needs to move to the Swedish system in which the Swedish Parliament gets to debate the Government’s Budget, proposes alternatives and amendments before it is finalised, and gets a proper period of scrutiny and accountability in the months that follow. What are the Government doing to stop these leaks, do they recognise that this flip-flopping is incredibly damaging to households and the markets, and will they consider all good ideas, including from the Liberal Democrats?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  In June, I met the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), to press the Government to adopt the measures in my Chalk Streams (Sewerage Investment) Bill. I was delighted by her commitments, namely that she would investigate whether Ministers already had the powers to instruct water companies to prioritise pipe upgrades in chalk streams and, in any event, would write to those water companies and ask them to do so. Will the Leader of the House please ask the Minister to produce a written statement to update the House on that work?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister in his new role will consider our calls again. Right now, families across the country are struggling with a cost of living crisis, yet the Chancellor is preparing to increase taxes. Meanwhile, because of high interest rates and arcane Treasury rules to do with quantitative easing, the big banks are making billions of pounds in windfall profits that they never expected, never relied on and never had to take any risk to earn. Without asking the Deputy Prime Minister to pre-empt the Chancellor’s Budget, which does he think is fairer: taxing struggling families or taxing big banks?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  On behalf of my party, may I join the Deputy Prime Minister in expressing our horror at the terrifying knife attack at the weekend and pay tribute to all those, including the emergency services, who put themselves in harm’s way to protect others? As we approach Remembrance Sunday, may I also join him in remembering all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our rights and our freedoms? Those rights and freedoms are now under threat in a way that we have not seen since the second world war. Putin is waging war on our continent and interfering in democracies across Europe, the Chinese Government are waging espionage against this House and Elon Musk is inciting violence on our streets. To date, the Government have failed to heed our calls for a new inquiry into Russian meddling, failed to place China on the enhanced tier of country threats and failed to launch an MI5 investigation into the threat posed by Elon Musk. What will it take for the Government to act and protect our democracy?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Relief: Impact on Farmers · Hansard source

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  On Friday I sat with farmers and their families in Brecon and Radnor, and they are desperate. If they are 65 or over, they have no time to plan for the family farm tax, they cannot get insurance, and they will be put in an impossible position if the Government go ahead with the tax unamended. The CenTax report sets out options that could extend extra protection for family farms while rightly raising funds from people who are currently exploiting the tax loopholes in APR. Those farmers asked me to put a question to the Chancellor. They asked, “Can the Chancellor please say precisely which parts of the CenTax report the Government disagree with, and why?”

• 4 Nov 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Business Impact · Hansard source

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  Analysis by UKHospitality suggests that more than half the job losses in the UK since last year’s Budget have come from its sector. That is further evidence that the jobs tax has been bad for growth and bad for job opportunities. We Liberal Democrats have set out fairer ways of raising revenue and going for growth, so rather than the Government suggesting that we have not done so, can I instead ask them: will they use the Budget to consult on a new lower national insurance contribution band to create opportunities for part-time workers, especially in hospitality?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Where was it?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Gentleman will understand, I am not setting out proposals; I am commenting on the proposals from his party. For the record, I was not setting out Liberal Democrat policy; I was discussing what some commentators have pointed towards. I am sure that in the next two or three years, as we get closer to the general election, the Conservatives will be very interested to read our tax plans, which are under active consideration. Even if people cannot agree on what should replace stamp duty, they can agree on this: if we change one tax in isolation, there are knock-on negative effects. Far from giving more people the security of home ownership, this measure in isolation would put it further out of reach. How do we know that? We know it because there was a big surge in house prices during the temporary stamp duty holiday in 2020-21; it had a negative impact on house buyers. If the Conservatives—and, indeed, the Government—are truly interested in growing the economy, surely they will agree that the best and most immediate way to do so is to reverse the damage of their terrible Brexit deal with Europe. Analysis shows that if the Government did a better deal with the EU, within their own red lines, they would raise an additional £25 billion per year by unleashing the growth potential of our exporting British businesses.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Our tax system is a mess. It is complicated and unfair. It is riddled with cliff edges that distort behaviours and create inequities, and there are exemptions that have not been reviewed for years. Council tax is outdated and hated. Inheritance tax and capital gains allow the super-wealthy to exploit loopholes while the squeezed middle picks up the tab. Business rates are a tax on bricks and mortar that penalise our high streets while online giants corner more and more of the market. IR35 is a sledgehammer to crack a nut for contractors, and research and development tax credits are in such a muddle that they are triggering lots of disputes, even for legitimate claims. When any one of those taxes is tweaked, it causes problems elsewhere. Time and again, we see that when people want to do the right thing and pay the right amount of tax or query a tax issue, they call His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, only to have the call handler hang up, or they contact the Valuation Office Agency and have to spend money on an expensive third party that specialises in disputes. Stamp duty has all the hallmarks of a bad tax. It is a transaction tax and an extra cost that stops people from moving, when they might want to move to start a family, to take up a new job or to take on caring responsibilities. It prevents people from getting on the housing ladder, from upsizing and sometimes from downsizing. It gums up the housing market in a country where we simply cannot afford for that to happen. It disincentivises people from moving and holds back a dynamic economy.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. It really does irk me that the Conservatives keep talking about the welfare bill going up when they blew a hole in the public health budget, eroded primary and community care, and did nothing to fix social care—and NHS dentistry has been hollowed out. Is it any wonder that when people cannot get the care that they need when they need it, we end up firefighting and spending loads of money on welfare and the NHS further down the line? We should be investing to save.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  Well, I’ll say it again. The way to grow our economy is to do away with the 2 billion pieces of paperwork that have come in since Brexit: enough paper to wrap around the world 15 times—and yet still the Conservatives groan. Fifteen months ago, it seemed as though the Conservatives were struggling to adjust to life in opposition; now it seems that they are simply enjoying it far too much. That is precisely why the idea of abolishing stamp duty in isolation and funding it through cuts to public services alone is fantasy economics and desperate politics. The announcement at the Conservative party conference had everything to do with the Leader of the Opposition keeping herself in post until after May’s elections and nothing to do with making a serious contribution to the debate on tax reform. This motion is unfunded, unserious and not worth the paper it is written on, and that is why we will not support it.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  No—for all the reasons that I will come to. The hon. Gentleman was a fraction too early. Here’s the rub: stamp duty raises a lot of money, and that is presumably why the Conservatives did not seek to scrap it at any point during all their years in power. Stamp duty for primary residences in England and Northern Ireland raised around £4 billion in 2023-24, and it is suggested that it will raise £9 billion in 2029-30. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the cost in 2029-30 will be around £11 billion, with the additional costs in Scotland and Wales taken into account. That means that abolishing stamp duty on primary residences would cost in the region of £36 billion to £44 billion in total over the next five years. For anybody who is not keeping up, that is almost the cost of the mini-Budget, just in slow motion. The Conservatives say that they want all those cuts to come from public expenditure, but in this motion they do not say where those savings would come from. By my calculations, they could choose to scrap nearly the whole of the Ministry of Justice—given revelations in recent days about prisoners being let out wrongly, it feels like that may already have happened. The Conservatives could instead decide to end all support for farmers by scrapping the entirety of the budget for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which reached £7.4 billion in 2028-29, including capital— [ Interruption. ] Well, it does not say that in the motion. Maybe they would want to do away with the cost of clearing the vast majority of the NHS maintenance backlog—a cost they would reach in a single year—or maybe they would want to scrap the £12 billion a year budget for special educational needs and disabilities. It is not clear in the official Opposition motion where the cuts would come from. There is a strong case for looking at reforming or scrapping stamp duty all together, alongside other property tax reforms and moving to a land value tax. Indeed, some commentators suggest that scrapping stamp duty and council tax together and phasing in a land value tax over time could be one way to move ahead.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Draft Companies (Directors' Report) (Payment Reporting) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister to his place. When it comes to the treatment of small businesses, there are two things that get right up people’s noses. The first is the big David and Goliath fights that sometimes happen between big companies and their small suppliers; the other is regulators that are tasked with tackling those problems, but can do nothing about them, because they do not have the teeth. Fundamentally, we are a country that believes in fairness, and late payments are a problem that is deeply unfair and unjust, and can be existential for some small businesses. The Liberal Democrats welcome this extra transparency on payment practices and performance; it will really help. We support this measure, and we hope very much that the Government will power ahead with introducing additional powers for the Small Business Commissioner so that they can launch proactive investigations, rather than passively receiving complaints. Would the Minister like to say a word or two on that? If I may test your patience for a second more, Ms Vaz, it is Small Business Saturday in just under seven weeks’ time, on 6 December—just a few days after the Budget. We know that transparency and improved regulation matter to small businesses, but the tax burden matters too. I urge the Government to ensure that, by the time Small Business Saturday arrives, there is some more good news for small businesses to be happy about.

• 15 Oct 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I think Hongkongers will require a lot more reassurance and action from this Government. It is not just the Chinese Government who are a threat to our country. On Monday, the far-right, racist hate-preacher Tommy Robinson, who is on trial for allegedly refusing to comply with counter-terror police, claimed that his legal costs are being paid by Elon Musk. It is outrageous that a man who has so much control over what people read online every day could be funding someone who stokes far-right extremism on our streets. If it was Putin, the Government would surely act. Will the Prime Minister commission the security services to assess the threat that Elon Musk poses to our democracy, and to recommend measures that this House can take to stop that?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  May I associate myself and my party with the tributes to David Amess? On behalf of my party, may I also pay tribute to Ming Campbell, who is being laid to rest today? That is the reason why my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) cannot be here. I thank you, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister and other Members of this House for the very kind tributes paid yesterday. We welcome the new level of transparency from the Prime Minister, and we will scrutinise the witness statements closely, but it is clear that there are still many questions to be answered, including questions from Hongkongers. Hongkongers in St Albans and across the UK settled in our communities after they fled repression at the hands of the Chinese state, but they now see a British Government who want to make it harder for them to settle here permanently, refuse to impose targeted sanctions on Chinese officials who put bounties on Hongkongers’ heads, refuse to rule out a Chinese super-embassy and are failing to tackle Chinese espionage. Hongkongers are starting to ask whether the Prime Minister is trading away their security and safety in our communities for a cosier relationship with Beijing. What is the Prime Minister’s answer to them?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  Let me start with huge congratulations to Save Our Children’s Rights on securing more than 120,000 signatures. I was pleased to see that Special Needs Jungle is one of the organisations supporting the campaign; its co-director is one of my constituents. Children in Hertfordshire suffered a double whammy under the Conservatives. The Conservatives had a broken funding formula that they refused to fix, which meant that children in Hertfordshire were short-changed, and the former Conservative administration at Hertfordshire county council was rated by Ofsted as one of the worst in the country. I am pleased to say that the Liberal Democrats have taken control of Hertfordshire county council, and our new leader’s very first announcement was on the creation of a SEND summit. That summit took place this morning. Ahead of it, there was a SEND listening survey, and 130 people attended community engagement events, because we Liberal Democrats know that the voices of children, parents, carers and teachers must be at the heart of any reforms. Political will at the local level goes some way, but of course we require the Government to act as well. Hertfordshire faces a number of challenges, which are not inconsiderable. Due to the various reforms under way by the Labour Government, we are facing a move to one or a number of unitary authorities; there is a reorganisation of our health body, the integrated care board; and the so-called fairer funding review could see the loss of up to £54 million by 2028-29. Our SEND budgets have necessarily been overspent for the last number of years, with an accounting tool used to keep the deficit off the balance sheet, but that tool is set to expire in May 2026. Hertfordshire is still under an improvement notice. It was due a monitoring visit, but that has been delayed, awaiting the Government’s national announcement. These top-down reforms are taking up valuable political oxygen among the political leadership and the senior leadership team at the council, taking them away from helping families. The drip-feeding of information on the changes the Government are considering is causing enormous anxiety, too. Children, parents, carers and teachers cannot wait any more. As many other hon. Members have said, they are at breaking point. Please, we need action.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the Minister give way?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions: Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  The jobs tax has hit small businesses the hardest, with statistics from the Office for National Statistics showing that vacancies among small businesses alone have dropped by 18%. This proves that the jobs tax is not only crushing growth but crushing opportunity, especially in hospitality. Have Treasury Ministers commissioned their officials to look at any of the fairer revenue raisers that we Liberal Democrats have put forward—such as taxes on the banks, the tech companies or the gambling companies—in order that the Treasury could scrap the jobs tax at the next Budget?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Neurodivergent People: Employment · Hansard source

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  We would all welcome a framework for monitoring the outcomes and the results, but we have heard today that people face many barriers in trying to access these kinds of schemes. Will the Government consider requiring service level agreements, so that when people apply to the schemes or engage with them, they know what they are going to get, how they are going to get it, and how quickly they are going to get it?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Neurodivergent People: Employment · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) on securing this incredibly important and well-attended debate. In my years of campaigning for disability rights, I have found that people are very interested in the difference between the medical system and the social system. The medical model sees people as having an impairment, whereas the social model sees the barriers as the disabling factor to people’s lives. One of the things that I have found so fascinating, inspiring and encouraging about this debate is that so many colleagues have identified that it is the very barriers that are disabling to people who are neurodivergent. We started the debate with a very eager intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), who made the strong point that this issue starts in schools. I know that he is tabling a ten-minute rule Bill tomorrow to call for universal screening in schools. I hope that the Government take that Bill very seriously. I put on record my admiration for my hon. Friend for speaking with such courage about his own experience of growing up with dyslexia, and for inspiring people young and old by doing so. I also put on record my admiration for the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) for talking about his experiences. My hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) spoke passionately about the SEND system. My own area of Hertfordshire is also in the f40—the 40 worst funded councils for special educational needs. We see the barriers that that poses to young people, who have huge potential but cannot reach it because there is not the support in place to help them tackle those barriers. Throughout the debate we have heard from hon. Members from a number of political parties about the work of their local colleges, self-employment initiatives, job centres, businesses and so many other places that are actively going above and beyond to tackle those disabling barriers. It was wonderful to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) about Foxes hotel in Minehead, which is regarded as the Oxbridge of employing people with neurodiversity. If one thing that has come out from all hon. Members’ contributions, it is that the Access to Work scheme is anything but; it could be considered the “barriers to work” scheme by many people. The phones and the forms themselves are barriers, but delays are also a huge problem. In answer to a written parliamentary question that I tabled a few months ago, it was revealed that one person had waited 393 days—more than a year—for a response to an Access to Work application. How on earth will an individual get into a job or stay in their job, and how on earth can an employer offer a job with confidence, if it takes that long for the Access to Work scheme to work? I hope that the Minister will answer that question in his response to the debate. We often hear the saying, “All politics is personal,” and that is more relevant to this debate than to many others. I imagine that many of us who have spoken in or attended the debate are here because our loved ones—our friends, family or relatives—our neighbours, or perhaps we ourselves have experienced neurodiversity. Given the age of many of us in this room, it is possible that some grew up in an age in which they were told that they were stupid and they grew up with the stigma, and they are now form-phobic, because they are still struggling with what they were told. I hope that what people young and old will have taken from the debate is that we in this House consider those people to have superpowers. We recognise that neurodiversity is about creativity and ingenuity. People see the world in a different way, and their way of looking at the world in a different way actually will help businesses to make different, and better, decisions. On that note, I will finish. There have been a number of questions and suggestions, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief: Impact on Farming · Hansard source

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  We Liberal Democrats oppose the family farm tax, but in the spirit of constructive opposition, last November I recommended and requested that Ministers look at the idea of a family farm test, such as the ones used in France and Ireland. Such a test would ensure that they could close the loophole on big equity companies exploiting land, but it would not cover family farms in the process. Since I raised that suggestion last November, have Treasury Ministers asked officials to look at it?