Jon Pearce MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  No. The message from this Government is that we are committed to farming, and to making it profitable and sustainable. That has to be the message that we send out to those young farmers. There is no doubt that farmers in my constituency have been struggling terribly for the past 14 years, working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, for very little reward. The last Government promised them the earth, but left them in the sheep dip. After all the Brexit promises, what they got was the Leader of the Opposition selling them out in trade deals with New Zealand and Australia. Boris Johnson promised farmers that subsidies would stay at 100%, but then the Government phased out the basic farm payment. The Opposition’s incompetence saw farmers miss out on £358 million that could have been in their back pockets when they desperately needed it, and then came Liz Truss. Her mini-Budget and all those unfunded tax cuts—a point that I will return to—crashed the economy, causing interest rates to rise and driving many farmers to the brink. Over 12,000 farmers and agricultural businesses were lost under the last Government, so we will not take any lectures from the Opposition about the farming industry.

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

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  No, I will not. Secondly, they were concerned about cuts to the farming budget. The Chancellor delivered £5 billion for the farming budget, the largest ever investment in sustainable food production and nature recovery, and she delivered in terms of protecting family farms in my constituency.

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

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  The hon. Gentleman mentions 5% of agricultural businesses being at risk. Is it not true that under the last Government, between 2019 and 2024, there was an 8% reduction in agricultural businesses in his constituency of North Cotswolds, thanks to the policies of his party when they were in government?

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

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  I live in one of the rural villages and speak to the farmers in my villages all the time. The fact is that those farmers voted for me because they were so let down by the last Government.

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

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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

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  To misquote Brian Clough, I would not say that my constituency is the most beautiful in the country, but it is certainly in the top one. We have generations of farmers to thank for that beauty—those who protected the land and nurtured nature long before the Peak District was designated Britain’s first national park. If I thought for one second that these changes to agricultural property relief threatened future generations of farmers in my constituency, I would not vote for them, but I do not.

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

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  I will not give way at this stage. Those estates over the threshold will have a 50% reduction in the amount they pay. We have already heard that the seven-year rule will continue to apply, so farming families will be able to make plans for the future.

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

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  Sorry, I will not give way at this stage. This debate has, however, shone an important light on one issue, which I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for raising: the fact that our farmers are working day in, day out, for very little profit. The question is how we support them to be profitable again. Energy bills are one of the biggest costs farming businesses face. This Government will help bring down those costs through GB Energy and by introducing grid reform to allow farmers to plug renewables into the national grid. We must protect them from being undercut by foreign imports.

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

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  I will not take any more interventions at the moment. Before the Budget, I sat down with farmers in my constituency. They wanted to talk about two things. First, they were concerned about the effect of the changes to APR on family farms.

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

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  I am sorry, but I will not. We must create a greater marketplace for farming businesses by using the Government’s purchasing power to ensure that 50% of the food bought for our hospitals, prisons and army bases is produced by local farmers. Here is the most important point: we have to provide farming businesses with economic stability. The Leader of the Opposition has already failed to learn the lessons of the Liz Truss Budget, with £6.7 billion of unfunded tax cuts already announced in a matter of weeks. The Opposition need to tell us how they are going to pay for that. What are they going to cut? Are they going to cut the farming budget—are we going to lose the £5 billion from the farming budget?—or are they going to borrow and put us right back in the position we were in with Liz Truss, with interest rates rising and farms going out of business? I will not be voting for the Opposition motion; I will be supporting farmers in my constituency and providing the economic stability they need.

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

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  No, I will not give way at this stage. Let us be clear: only 4% of estates in this country pay inheritance tax. As we have repeatedly heard, these changes will mean that a couple will be able to leave £3 million-worth of estate to their children without paying a penny in inheritance tax. To put that in context, if a couple owned a £3 million mansion, they would be paying £940,000 in inheritance tax.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the shadow Minister for giving way so often. I want to address a principle: the Working Time Regulations 1998 established that if an employee, or indeed an employer, wishes to take holiday, the statutory notice period will be twice as much as the holiday taken. That is the same principle in the Bill, in that it is perfectly reasonable for a worker who does not have guaranteed hours to be given notice when work is not available. That statutory principle has been in place since the last century, so this is not outwith what every worker should expect. It is perfectly reasonable that if a worker has been told that work is available, they should be given reasonable notice if it is not. The shadow Minister’s Government kept to that principle, and it is perfectly applicable to employees and workers in this situation as well.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, I would, and it is entirely right that it should be. We have to have a level playing field within the UK; otherwise, we see all the perverse incentives that hon. Members, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, are keen to avoid. We cannot have a two-tier workforce. Returning to my original point, law is often complex in the way it is written, but that does not mean it will be complex in its application. It will only be complex where there are attempts to avoid it. It is absolutely right that the law is tight on this so that we do not have huge amounts of avoidance within the business sector from unscrupulous employers. Most employers, as we know, do not exploit zero-hours contracts, for example, so it is entirely right that we make sure that those who wish to exploit them cannot.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I want to pick up a point that the shadow Minister made about the effect of the pandemic on the backlog of employment tribunal claims. When the last Labour Government left office, the time between a claim being brought and the first hearing was about 30 weeks. By 2019—pre-pandemic—it had increased to 38 weeks. We are now at about 55 weeks. We have seen a huge increase in that time, but it was already rising significantly pre-pandemic.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 came into force in October 2011, under the leadership of David Cameron and the coalition, and there is similar wording in the agency worker regs. Regulation 9(4)(a) states that “the most likely explanation for the structure of the assignment, or assignments, mentioned in paragraph (3) is that H, or the temporary work agency supplying the agency worker to H, or, where applicable, H and one or more hirers connected to H, intended to prevent the agency worker from being entitled to, or from continuing to be entitled to, the rights conferred by regulation 5”. The legislation that we are considering is not out of the ordinary in its complexity. This is just necessary—

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The amendments may create a two-tier workforce, as the shadow Minister suggested. Does he know how many employees in the UK would not have the benefit of these rights if we made the amendments he is suggesting?

• 3 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I should refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB. The shadow Minister talks about employment rights from day one and the extra burden, when the reality is that cases of discrimination and whistleblowing can be brought on day one. Giving some structure to the probationary period will actually assist many employers. In my experience in private practice advising businesses, many of them found themselves subject to claims of discrimination because they failed to go through a proper process. The Bill will assist businesses in giving a greater structure and could potentially lessen the burden on employers with regard to the threat of litigation.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q You are probably the second or third witness who has raised the idea that the removal of the “one establishment” reference will require consultation with people who are not at risk of redundancy. I am interested in that interpretation, because you would need to consult only with affected employees and their representatives, so it would be only people who are at risk of redundancy or are to be made redundant. Could you clarify your understanding of that? Alasdair Reisner: I should first clarify that I am not an expert in redundancy. However, based on the conversations we have had, you have to look at how individual employers would respond to the new environment. I do not think this would ever be the case, but it is almost as though people feel that the only way out of this will be to have a permanent rolling redundancy consultation within their business to try to address the fact that there are people on geographical sites who are coming off and going on all the time. Under a new approach, there is no other easy route that would help to address that issue.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a member of the GMB.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Employment Rights Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  I also refer to my declaration of interests. I am a member of GMB.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Speaker’s Statement · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It is wonderful to hear all the various tributes to John and I wanted to share my own memories of him. As some have mentioned, when it came to campaigning, his big thing was his battle bus—who would not love touring the country eating sweets with Martin Angus? I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) will attest to that. I have my own memory of John’s battle bus from after the 2005 election. He got a small group of us together and we toured London as commuters were on their way to work, at around 7.30 or 8 o’clock in the morning. John was on the tannoy thanking them all individually for voting Labour and for another five years of a Labour Government. Watching people literally stop in the street, confused that a bus was talking to them, only to discover that it was actually the Deputy Prime Minister talking to them, was incredible. John then took us all to his flat, where, despite having had no sleep at all, he made us bacon sandwiches and tea. That was John at his best: generous, indomitable and completely unpredictable. John’s incredible achievements and those of that Labour Government will stand the test of time. He was the cement that kept the broad church of those New Labour Governments together and we will always remember him for that. I also want to say that last year my father died of Alzheimer’s, and it was very difficult, in those early days, to remember the man who was, before that cruel disease took him away. I really do hope that Pauline and John’s family are listening to the wonderful tributes that are being paid here in this House and around the country, so that they can remember the extraordinary man that John was and the extraordinary life that he lived.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Paternity Leave and Pay · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) for bringing forward the debate. I have a declaration of interest: next Tuesday, I will become a father for the third time. Will I take two weeks of paternity leave? No, I will take three, and I still do not think that that is enough. My wife will have a caesarean, as has been mentioned, and the advice to her is clear that she should not drive for six weeks. We live in a rural village where if we do not drive, we do not take the other children to school. It is vital that families have the ability to take a longer time when the health of the woman and the wellbeing of the children is at stake.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. In 2020, the US committed £250 million to support peace building and Palestinian economic development. Will the Minister consider how we can work with our partners in the US, using our world-leading development expertise and our experience in conflict resolution in Northern Ireland, to take a lead in this vital work?