Speeches by Murray.

“I have given way already, so I am going to make some progress. The reforms should be seen in the context of the significant existing support for the farming industry in the wider tax system, including the exemption from business rates for agricultural land and buildings, the ongoing entitlement for vehicles and machine…”

“Although our policy should discourage the kind of tax planning to which I think the hon. Gentleman refers, the policy is broader than that. It is necessary to balance significant relief from inheritance tax on family farms with the need to fix the public finances, and that is the balanced decision that we have taken wi…”

“No, that is not the case. The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who will be responding at the end of this debate, can set out more about what the Government are doing to support farmers in their work on land management across the country.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the mismanagement under the previous Government and to how important it is that, through the commitments we made in the Budget on the farming budget over the next two years, we support farmers across the country as evidence of our steadfast support. I recognise th…”

“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about the record of the Opposition parties. In our Budget, we made sure to protect the payslips of working people by not increasing income tax, employee national insurance or VAT. Our approach to reform strikes the right balance between providing significant tax relief for family f…”

“I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions during the course of the debate. This Government were elected with an immediate and critical need to draw a line under the fiscal irresponsibility and economic mismanagement of the Conservatives. Since day one in office, we have been determined to deliver …”

“I have been very generous over the past 48 hours in giving way in this Chamber, but I will not. My time is very limited, although I would like to hear more about the plane the hon. Gentleman spoke about earlier. We have made the tough but necessary choices that this set of circumstances requires, which is why we have d…”

“I will make some progress. As I was saying, we could not justify leaving the situation unchanged, with a full, unlimited tax relief benefiting a very small number of estates by a very significant amount, given that there is such an urgent need to repair the public finances and to improve the hospitals, schools and road…”

“It is not appropriate for me, as a Minister, to give specific tax advice to one family, but I will talk about the general principles behind our reform. In fact, I was about to begin setting out some of the detail of our policy.”

“What I am explaining is that the data for claims through HMRC, which shows the claims made under agricultural property relief and business property relief, is the correct set of data to work out future liabilities on that basis. That is what the projections that we have put out are based on. That is set out in the Chan…”

“I reassure the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a lot of respect personally, that we carefully considered how to calibrate the policy to ensure that significant relief from inheritance tax is still available to family farms, while at the same time fixing the public finances in as fair a way as possible.”

“I have confidence in the way in which we have calibrated the policy. As I said to the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), it has balanced the need to retain significant, generous provision of inheritance tax relief for family farms with ensuring that, at the same time, we fix the public finances in the fairest…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that the Conservative party has no ideas about how the country needs to change, no ideas about how to get the public finances back in order, and no ideas about how to get public services back on their feet or how to deliver economic stability.”

“As the hon. Member will know, we announced in the Budget an increase in local government funding of 3.2% next year, and the Chancellor announced extra funding for early years providers to deliver Government-funded childcare places, meaning that total funding will be over £8 billion in 2025-26. I look forward to the hon…”

“As the hon. Gentleman will know, we set out our plans for reforming business rates to ensure that retail, hospitality and leisure properties on the high street with rateable values below £500,000 will benefit from a permanent tax cut from this Government. The importance of that tax cut being permanent is that it gives …”

“Until the hon. Lady’s last sentence, I thought she was declaring support for our business rates plans, because we are setting out to level the playing field for high street businesses and the online giants. We are doing that by way of a permanent tax cut for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses on the high street…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem with Conservative Members is that they are all happy to say that they want more funding for the NHS; they are just not prepared to pay for it. What they need to realise is that, in government, we have to take tough decisions to ensure that we can fund public services and …”

“We recognise that the decision on national insurance contributions is a tough one, but we also recognise that it was necessary for the Chancellor to set out a Budget that included a record set of promises on home building. We are set to build 1.5 million homes over the course of this Parliament, investing in social and…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the failures of the previous Government, and to point out that this Government remain steadfast in our commitment to farmers across the country. That is exactly why we have committed £5 billion to the farming budget over the next two years, including the largest ever budg…”

“To deliver our manifesto pledge, we intend to introduce permanently lower tax rates for high street retail, hospitality and leisure properties from 2026-27. This tax cut must be sustainably funded, so we intend to introduce a higher rate on the most valuable properties—those with a rateable value of £500,000 or above—f…”