What Britain's parties say and do in public, recorded from the source.
Every entry links to Hansard, Parliament, the Electoral Commission or the party's own channel. Every party is tracked by the same rules. Methodology
Labour Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Conservative and Unionist Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Liberal Democrats
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Reform UK
Latest entry 6 Nov 2026
Scottish National Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Green Party
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
Plaid Cymru
Latest entry 4 Nov 2026
12,832 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
A friend of mine recently told me about her mother, who is British born but is a person of colour, who now feels unsafe on the streets of Britain. Does the hon. Member agree that despicable rhetoric like this contributes to making certain individuals feel unsafe?
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for being generous with his time. Will he join me in congratulating the veterans of the Taunton and Wellington branches of the Royal British Legion, who have been campaigning on this issue with me and have secured a commitment from my colleagues on Somerset council to review benefits so that all military service compensation is disregarded as income?
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. To be clear, the Liberal Democrats support this statutory instrument. We have long called for home energy policy to move beyond a fixation on heat pumps as the only solution. Heat pumps work well for many homes, but heat batteries offer another low-carbon option. With energy bills rising because of the conflict in the middle east, the Government must do more to improve home energy efficiency and protect households from volatile energy prices. The Liberal Democrats are calling for an ambitious 10-year emergency home upgrade programme, starting with free installation for people on low incomes, alongside a commitment to zero-carbon new homes and decoupling from the marginal pricing system. As I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ClimateTech, it would be remiss of me not to mention that we must make better use of data when delivering home upgrades such as heat pumps and batteries. Decisions based on factory estimates do not reflect how building upgrades actually perform. Verified performance data can help households to get better advice, improve the success of retrofit programmes, reduce costs and encourage private investment. The Government should go further to help households to access these solutions and ensure that low-carbon heating is affordable and practical for more people.
3. What steps she is taking to help ensure that the UK upholds international law.
President Trump’s Administration stated that they would dismantle the International Criminal Court “brick by brick”, and have imposed sanctions following ICC judge Navi Pillay being awarded the 2026 Nobel peace prize. The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has had access to emails and bank accounts removed, following sanctions by President Trump. What steps are the Government taking with European allies to uphold international law and human rights in the face of threats to the ICC by the US Administration?
Thank you, Mr Speaker—[Hon. Members: “More!] They will be getting more. Mr Speaker, can I join you, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in praising the late Sir David Amess and sending our condolences to his family? He was a man who was respected across this House and who had friends across this House. When the Prime Minister announced cross-party talks on social care over the summer, I was delighted and immediately accepted because getting this right really matters. He said then that to build a lasting solution on funding care, we were going to have to listen to each other and find common ground. He said that when he tried before, back in 2009, his mistake had been leaving it too close to an election. Does he still think that now? If we are to find the common ground well before the next election, will he tell us when the next round of cross-party talks will be?
The Prime Minister knows that I share his passion to get this right. He knows that I share his passion to work cross-party to find consensus, which is the only way we can put this right, but I hope we can get on with the cross-party talks. We cannot push this to the end of the next decade. We have to act now for the millions of people who need our help. Can I move on to other matters? Scared of the mid-terms, President Trump has done a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel, ripping up international sanctions against Putin. The Prime Minister studiously avoided commenting on Trump’s behaviour on Monday, but this House deserves to know his position, as do President Zelensky and our brave Ukrainian allies. So let me ask the Prime Minister this: does he not agree that this is yet another shameful Trump betrayal of the Ukrainian people and European security?
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for securing this vital debate, which could not be more timely for my constituents. I want to use my contribution to offer a warning from Wales about what happens when Governments distance themselves from the decisions being taken by NHS trusts or boards under their control. Community hospitals across Powys, including in Knighton, Llanidloes, Llandrindod Wells, Ystradgynlais, Welshpool and Machynlleth, face a perilous future, with vital local services potentially lost. Powys teaching health board is currently running a consultation called “Better Together”, which proposes that the number of hospital beds be slashed from 146 to as few as 60, with further cuts made to minor injuries units, mental health services and X-ray units. My constituents and I fear that the proposals essentially amount to closure by stealth for some hospitals, particularly at Llandrindod Wells and Ystradgynlais. All the GP practices in Powys have written to express their concerns about the proposals, which have provoked enormous public opposition, with nearly 10,000 people signing my petition against the cuts and hundreds attending public meetings that I have organised across the county. At the same time, in order to save money, the same health board has been slowing down treatment times for patients awaiting surgery in neighbouring health boards and trusts in Shropshire and Herefordshire. Despite that, the new Plaid Cymru Welsh Government have repeatedly refused to intervene, insisting that the issues are operational matters for the health board. We now face the extraordinary situation in which a health board is putting forward proposals that appear to directly contradict its Government’s own stated policy to improve step-down care. Welsh Ministers refuse to take responsibility and step in before it is too late. The health boards and trusts in Wales are accountable to the Welsh Health Minister, yet successive Welsh Health Ministers have refused to take responsibility for their funding. Welsh Ministers are responsible for the financial contributions of health boards; they cannot wash their hands of the consequences when those boards propose deep cuts to frontline services. It is striking that, while Governments elsewhere in the UK have sought to strengthen scrutiny and intervention in struggling NHS trusts, the approach in Wales has too often been to place greater distance between Ministers and local health boards. It is important that the Welsh Health Minister takes responsibility for his job and the Welsh health service that he runs, listens to the people of Powys and scraps the proposal for the removal of hospital beds across our communities.
Q4. Exactly five weeks ago, I asked the Prime Minister if he would back my three-year campaign to get a new mental health in-patient hub in Hertfordshire, which would begin to pay for itself as soon as it is built. I know that the Prime Minister understands the principle of invest to save, because he himself has used this argument to explain why building social homes will reduce the housing benefit bill. So will he stick to his principles and, having reviewed the proposal that I sent him, now commit to provide the up-front resources to build this self-funding mental health hub in Hertfordshire?
It is good to see the shadow Chancellor open this debate, because after his conference speech I too was not sure whether he would be trusted to close it. The shadow Chancellor was not the only Conservative Front Bencher to deliver an interesting conference speech, as the Leader of the Opposition simultaneously told us that every spending commitment would be matched by a source of funding, but then proceeded to announce a string of unfunded pledges—[Interruption.] Oh we got the numbers. It is clear that “Keminomics”—[Interruption.] I think the official Opposition are slightly rattled, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is now clear that “Keminomics” is simply Trussonomics 2.0, and if Conservative Members get anywhere near the levers of power again, or if they choose to hand the keys to No. 10 to Reform UK, they will once again propel this country towards another crash in the public finances. Let me turn to the substance of the motion. We Liberal Democrats agree that the inheritance tax system is not fair. Ordinary families can face an inheritance tax rate of 40%, while those inheriting estates worth tens of billions of pounds are often able to avoid paying their fair share through complex tax planning and accounting arrangements.
Households and businesses feel absolutely hammered by the tax burden at the moment. On the subject of this particular motion, I hope we can agree that there is a problem because the wealthiest people can avoid inheritance tax through various loopholes.
The hon. Gentleman’s first question was broader and was asking about the capacity of businesses generally to pay for advance tax planning. Hopefully we can all agree that the tax code in this country is so complicated that unfortunately people must seek expert tax advice. Our tax system could be much simpler. The point that I was trying to make is that there are problems and loopholes with this particular tax. We have one of the highest headline rates of inheritance tax in the OECD, yet only 4% of estates end up paying it. The burden often falls on those who cannot take advantage of the loopholes and exemptions that are available to those with access to expensive tax advice. We would reform inheritance tax to make it fairer, but let us be clear: a mini-Budget style approach to tax cuts is not the way to do it. There is a better alternative. If we want to help people who are being squeezed by the cost of living, the fairest and most effective approach is to cut income tax. We Liberal Democrats have done that before; when in power, we would do that again. In Government, we cut tax for millions of people, taking 3.4 million people out of income tax altogether. Today, we Liberal Democrats are committed to raising both the income tax personal allowance and the national insurance threshold to £15,000 over five years—[Interruption.] Conservative Members ask where we are going to find money for that—I will tell them.
Yes. Of all political parties represented in this Chamber, the official Opposition will know that the leader of the Liberal Democrats was an excellent climate Minister in the coalition Government. Our party leader is an economist and would never, ever have done what the hon. Gentleman’s party did with the mini-Budget. Our Liberal Democrat policy would take a further 2.5 million people out of paying income tax altogether. While the Conservatives’ proposal would benefit only around 30,000 people, funded through a mini-Budget style approach to tax cuts, our plans would deliver tax cuts to more than 30 million people across the country. Crucially, we would pay for that responsibly through the growth dividend generated by a new growth and defence partnership with the European Union.
I know exactly where Carlisle Avenue is. Based on the demographic of that ward, I might go and knock on that door and ask if their mortgage went up after the Liz Truss mini-Budget. We Liberal Democrats are clear: rebuilding our relationship with Europe is the single biggest lever available to increase economic growth, to boost living standards and to cut personal tax. For as long as the Conservative party refuses to acknowledge that, it will remain an anti-growth, anti-business party. We Liberal Democrats know that economic growth is not an end in itself. As we grow the economy, it is incumbent on all parties to ensure that the benefits of that growth are shared widely across the country.
I can tell the hon. Member that, based on the statistics, the thing that would bring the biggest amount of growth would be having a closer relationship with Europe. He will know that we Liberal Democrats opposed the rise in national insurance contributions, and we have said that we would like to see the reversal of the lower threshold as an immediate move to give businesses back the incentive to give young people jobs, given the crisis of young people not in education, employment or training. That is why our plans link the additional growth generated by a stronger partnership with Europe directly to tax cuts for working people. That is the fair way to help families facing the cost of living crisis, the responsible way to cut taxes and the honest way to pay for tax cuts, unlike the Conservatives’ unfunded promises.
I think we all accept that there are many unfairnesses in our tax system and that there are many tax reforms we want to see for growth. I have acknowledged in my speech that there are unfairnesses in the way that inheritance tax works, but scrapping taxes in an unfunded way is not the way to reform tax in this country, and it is certainly not the way to run the economy. Rather than offering another round of economic fantasy, we Liberal Democrats have a credible growth plan that would make the United Kingdom safer, stronger and more prosperous.
It is fascinating that the Conservatives are so obsessed with Carlisle Avenue. I have just looked up Carlisle Avenue’s local election results from last May: one half of the street is in Bernards Heath ward, where the Conservatives came fourth, and the other end of the street is in another ward, where the Conservatives came fifth. Does the hon. Gentleman think there are structural issues with his party that mean that people living on Carlisle Avenue have no interest in its policies?
I agree with the hon. Lady. The business rates increases under this Government are very damaging, but she will remember that the previous Government also pledged to fundamentally reform business rates and completely failed to do so. Does she understand why businesses across the country are fed up with both the Conservatives and Labour on this point?
Was the hon. Gentleman sticking up for farmers when his party negotiated trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, which undermined farmers in the UK?
My hon. Friend talks about the challenges that NHS trusts face. My local hospital, Torbay hospital, has an ageing tower block that has now received a fire enforcement notice, which could affect up to a quarter of the beds in the hospital. Panic is spreading today in the local community about what this means for future treatment. Does she agree that when things become as urgent as that, with a quarter of the beds in the hospital potentially having to be closed by the fire brigade, the Government desperately need to bring forward the new hospital programme funding, so that repair and remedial work can begin immediately to restore this part of the hospital?
I have heard from several veterans in my constituency who have served and left the forces with a modest occupational pension but now need universal credit to make ends meet. Because their pension is counted as income, they receive less support, and for some the reduction is substantial. Does my hon. Friend agree that the current treatment is not consistent with the armed forces covenant and that something needs to change?
The hon. Gentleman led his arguments in favour of large sites on cost grounds. I am sure that he is aware that the Home Affairs Committee looked at that matter and identified that, bed by bed, large sites were more expensive than hotels. Will he acknowledge that, because the site that we are talking about today has never had residential accommodation, the cost and capital terms of setting it up and building a village will greatly outstrip the cost of any alternative provision?
I appreciate your efforts to regulate our debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but might I seek your dispensation to speak for slightly longer than the limit you have imposed, given that my constituents are in the Gallery and the Opposition chose to cite a motion mentioning my constituency, without any reference to me? The Government want to build in my constituency a portacabin village to house male asylum seekers, not in former military accommodation but in a derelict storage depot at MOD Bicester. That is totally inappropriate—on that point I wholly agree with the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey). From the moment that the Government published their proposal, with no prior notice, I have opposed it. The scheme is wrong for local communities in my constituency, wrong for asylum seekers, and wrong for the taxpayer. For three and a half months I have worked closely with local campaigners to stop the scheme, raising it here with the Prime Minister, and with the Ministers for Border Security and Asylum, and for Defence Readiness and Industry. We will continue that campaign until the Government see sense. Allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, to welcome my constituents from Piddington to the Gallery today. I hope it will be possible to meet them after the debate. I further welcome this chance to set out what is wrong with the proposal, because Piddington is not an appropriate site in which to house 1,256 people. Back in 2005 when the last Labour Government proposed a scheme there, a planning inspector rejected the proposal to house 750 asylum seekers—men, women and children—on site A, which he said was isolated, unsuitable and unsafe, and that the proposal would create excessive community tensions. All those things are still true today, and they apply even more to a larger site exclusively housing male asylum seekers. I second the comments of my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), who laid out the arguments that have been articulated so clearly by campaigners from, among other groups, “Wrong Plan. Wrong Site.” Given the legal challenge presented by that group, will the Government pause their planning application and commit to conducting a full environmental impact assessment of the site before proceeding, as required under their own policies? I know the area very well. Before entering this House I served as county councillor for the villages of Otmoor. I spent many evenings at Piddington, Arncott and Ambrosden parish councils—I am sure other Members will be jealous of that. Since this proposal, I have visited Piddington many times, meeting members of the campaign group, knocking on the doors of my constituents, and speaking with women and men about their concerns. Local residents are worried that the site would take away stretched local resources, not only water and power, which are scarce, but also health services and policing. Women and girls in the area have raised concerns with me about their safety. As someone who has spoken repeatedly in this House against violence against women and girls, I understand why they are fearful. As a society we are failing to protect them from predatory men, and when the worst happens, the justice system is not delivering them swift justice. No wonder they lack confidence that they will be kept safe. In that context, any proposal to house over 1,200 men in a new site adjacent to small villages would be a cause for fear and concern. I have spoken with the police and crime commissioner, with Home Office Ministers and with local police leaders about that, and I will continue to seek assurance from Ministers that the Government will provide sufficient additional police resources. However, let us be clear: the Conservatives and Reform UK are trying to turn this into a race issue. It is not a race issue; it is a man issue. Women and girls are at risk from the behaviour of men, and tragically, nine in 10 assaults are committed by men they know. I will continue to fight for more police and court resources to keep women and girls safe. Like the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, I condemn the Government’s proposal, but I deeply regret that today the Conservatives have sought to link that with their policy on the European Court of Human Rights. We could have united on this issue, as I have sought to do at local level with local Conservative councillors and the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire, but instead the Conservatives have sought to divide rather than unite. I will continue to work with all those in my local community who oppose this wrong-sited proposal, and to ensure that the Government think again.
Simon Andriesz, a former finance manager, blew the whistle over hundreds of millions of dollars of financial crime, exposing links between the United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The Financial Conduct Authority wrongly told him that he had lost his legal protection as a whistleblower. Simon said: “The personal consequences of whistleblowing, and the retaliation that followed, have been devastating for my family and me.” Last month, Simon sadly took his own life. The FCA review is being carried out by a member of its own board. Will the Attorney General meet Cabinet colleagues to discuss this, and the case for an “office of the whistleblower”?
Thank you, Mr Stuart. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for securing this debate. Despite the hard work of staff, the performance of my NHS trust, from maternity services to stroke care, has been at the forefront of people’s minds because of underperformance. Since the merger, Yeovil hospital has been the poor relation. Thankfully, we managed to get our maternity unit in Yeovil safely reopened after a CQC report found serious failings and the trust closed the unit. We got Government oversight, as Baroness Amos reviewed our trust’s maternity services during the closure, and she concluded that “from the evidence we collected during our visits and the concerns expressed by staff, we remain concerned about patient safety at Yeovil District Hospital.” I am hearing that concern too, so I really want to hear from the Minister about the particular steps being taken now to improve oversight and support patient safety and staff in rural maternity units. Another priority issue for people in Yeovil is stroke services. After targets were not met, the NHS in Somerset closed Yeovil’s hyper-acute stroke unit as part of a service restructure. Patients will now have to travel to hospitals in Taunton or Dorchester. Local campaigners and I kept being told that there was a strong evidence base to suggest that a restructure would improve the service, but when we made a freedom of information request we found data suggesting that, in 2024, if stroke patients from Yeovil had been taken to Taunton, only 13% would have made it within the target call-to-needle time of 180 minutes, while only 30% would have made it to hospital in Dorchester in time. We have been working with the NHS in Somerset to get things such as pre-hospital video triage, to help to cut waiting times, and a refurbished acute stroke unit at Yeovil hospital, but we are still really concerned about travel times and outcomes. That is why we need Government oversight—specifically, a review of stroke services in rural areas, focusing on the evidence and the consultation process around service provision, health outcomes for patients and travel times. We need a proper national picture of how rural areas are being impacted by service restructures and mergers, because what works for Bristol or London will not always work for south Somerset and other rural areas. Sadly, I have heard really concerning reports of bullying and poor work culture across our entire NHS trust. That is why I believe the Government urgently need to improve oversight of working cultures and tackle bullying in NHS trusts. That should start with training for leadership teams across NHS trusts on bullying. Where there is poor performance, working culture is often a key factor. There is real scope for improved oversight of NHS trusts such as ours in Somerset. Ultimately, however, without Government support and funding, we will not be able to improve our NHS services.
A wealth of small businesses across my constituency keeps our local economy growing. Does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when our businesses need support that will enable them to create employment for the next generation, this Government—on whose Benches there is, of course, no business experience—are just squeezing and squeezing our businesses out of business?
The Minister appears to give the impression that he knows about the farming industry, but how often, if ever, does he actually go out on to a family farm and meet the farmers?
As I have listened to this debate today, I too have been reminded of the chilling words describing Labour MPs by their own Work and Pensions Secretary: “Every meeting I have is ‘who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others’.” This debate today once again sets out the battle of ideas between the welfare party and the Conservatives. This is the eighth vote the Conservatives have forced on the family farm and family business taxes since the disastrous first Labour Budget of broken promises. In that time, we have seen off a Prime Minister, a Chancellor and two DEFRA Secretaries of State, and discovered that one DEFRA Minister views black Labradors, warm ale and pubs as a far-right fantasy. We have also shown the power of rural and coastal communities, because through their protests here and across the country, the heartrending stories we have heard from families of the terrible discussions and decisions they have had to make in order to avoid this vindictive death tax, as set out eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), and the pressure we have exerted here in Westminster, we forced the Government into one of their most humiliating U-turns. There have been many, but this one was humiliating: their partial U-turn on these vindictive taxes. We are forcing another vote today, ahead of Budget, because we know the damage that these vindictive taxes continue to cause to the rural economy. We know that this Government have overseen the highest number of farms closing on record in a year—shameful. The Financial Secretary did not admit that. We also know, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) has set out, that the 10-year payment scheme that the Government keep talking about applies only if the estate is able to make the first payment within six months of the death, probate having been settled. Does anyone know of such a scenario in their own constituencies? This means that the 10-year payment plan is nothing but warm words from those on the Treasury Bench. It is an absolutely impossible condition to fulfil for the overwhelming majority of family farms and businesses that will be hit by these taxes. The Financial Secretary also did not acknowledge that investment in rural economies has dropped off a cliff. [Interruption.] He is not listening, but he might want to do so. In a recent Country Land and Business Association survey, nearly nine in 10 rural family businesses stated that they have paused investment; in fact, 85% say that the current threshold of which the Financial Secretary is so proud is not enough to cover the value of their business, given the cost of machinery and livestock and the other business costs imposed by this Government. Of course, two pubs are also closing every day under this Government. In short, rural communities cannot afford Labour. Despite their protestations over the past two years, every single Labour MP has voted for the family farm tax and the family business tax multiple times; only one had the courage to vote for his constituents. There is one other who did not: the Prime Minister, because he was not in Parliament at the time of the other votes. He knows that Labour has a rural problem, though. He has said that he recognises that the Government have a “long way to go to build back trust” with the farming community across the country. It is therefore a shame that today of all days, the Prime Minister has put another tax on family farms—the fertiliser tax. And every Labour MP voted for it. Again, the Work and Pensions Secretary was right. This is another hammer blow to British farming, only weeks after the shambolic handling of the sustainable farming incentive, the collapse of the Government’s environmental policy and the Prime Minister’s botched response on how his deal with the EU will, in fact, favour foreign farmers over British farmers and hand control over our food laws to the European Union. In the battle of ideas today, we have heard some superb speeches from the Conservatives Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) painted a picture of the many local pubs and black Labradors in his Suffolk constituency—the DEFRA Minister may wish to take note. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) set out sound economic analysis, even if he admitted that his cricketing skills are not quite what they should be. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) set out a description of the Labour party that I think hits home almost as much as the words of the Work and Pension Secretary: Labour is the party that taxes aspiration. This vote tonight is the proof of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) made an excellent intervention about the fact that the tax focuses only on British family farms and family businesses and does not affect foreign owners of farmland. Perhaps the Minister will explain how it is fair that foreign farmers should not pay this tax but British farmers should do so. We heard other excellent speeches, including by my hon. Friends the Members for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford), for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), and for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who described Labour’s approach to taxation as “asset stripping our country”. Let me turn to some of the speeches from the Labour Benches. We heard from the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin), who by the way voted for the family farm and family business tax seven times—tonight will be an eighth—and the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), who only voted for it three times. I am sure his farmers are so happy about that. Both of them asked, “What can be done to help those who are not yet on the housing ladder?” I am delighted to tell them that the Conservative party has the answer. We will be scrapping—
No, if the hon. Gentleman sits down—[Interruption.] I have some words about his AI-generated speech in a moment. The Conservatives have the answer: we will scrap stamp duty on primary residences. That is how we help people back on the housing ladder. The hon. Member for Macclesfield also described his own constituents who want to pass on their family homes or family businesses to their children as the “idle rich”. I hope that was just the AI.
I will, and I genuinely hope that he will explain his “idle rich” comment. Go on.
That will not plough any furrows with the farmers in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency whom he has just described as the “idle rich”. What is more, he has got his figures wrong. He keeps throwing these figures around, but in fact that Tax Policy Associates think-tank that so many Labour colleagues seem to rely on has said that by the end of this decade one in six families will pay inheritance tax—many of them in his constituency, which I know well. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) voted for the family farm and family business tax only a mere six times—he missed one of them—but he had the bright idea that farmers should get life insurance and planning advice. How on earth are farmers in his constituency on an income of around £20,000 a year going to afford that? It is yet more business taxes. We also heard a reliance on Dan Neidle and his organisation Tax Policy Associates. I merely make the point, so that it is open and transparent, that Dan Neidle is a senior member of the Labour party and served for three years on its disciplinary committee. The Conservatives are setting out the tough decisions to cut spending and help hard-working families up and down the country invest in their businesses and homes, ready to hand over to their families. People who have worked hard, paid their income tax, lived within their means and saved have not done so in order for the current Labour Chancellor to tax that all over again. They have done so because they have a deep desire to leave something to help the next generation prosper when they are no longer here.
I am so glad that the hon. Gentleman has brought that up, because not only did his first Chancellor extend the freeze, but she dragged pensioners into it. It is literally the worst of all words. Let me reiterate the point I just made, because it is an important one. Under this Government, one in six families will be liable to pay inheritance tax by 2030. That means many more constituents being liable to pay the tax. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay said that our idea to axe inheritance tax on the family home was bonkers. I hate to break it to him, but Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have all done the same. The reason why we are doing it, and why this is so important, is that we know it is families who build this country; it is families who put down roots. They build a home, they run a farm or they start a business, and they bring prosperity and vibrancy to our villages and our towns. So I make the promise that the Conservatives will axe these taxes if Labour does not does so at the Budget, because only the Conservatives are the party of the family home, the family business and the family farm, and only the Conservatives will get Britain working again.
My right hon. Friend will have noticed that some Liberal Democrat Members seem to think that there is no such thing as a bogus or illegal asylum seeker, but recently there have been a number of attempted terrorist attacks, including one against a Manchester synagogue, which was fortunately foiled, but which was planned to be carried out by people who came in illegally on small boats. Are we to wait for an atrocity to occur before the appropriate remedial measures will be taken?
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech in defence of right and decency, and in defence of my constituents and hers. The problem that we face, to which she has just alluded, is that the whole of the liberal establishment either cannot see this or will not see it. The root of the problem is their failure to recognise that cultural equivalence does not exist. Some of these people are coming from countries whose values are entirely different from ours, where people regard as acceptable things that we see as either unpalatable or frankly horrendous, and the failure to accept that fact underpins the unwillingness to do anything about what my hon. Friend has just described.
The Minister is of course right that international co-operation matters in terms of dealing with these things, particularly channel crossings, but the point made earlier was that where countries refuse to take back their nationals who have committed crimes here, we should take further action, should we not? Part of that might be cutting aid or dealing with visas, as has been suggested. There are all kinds of other levers that can be used by Government to tell those countries, “You’ve got to take them back, because they’re not our responsibility and we’re not going to pay for them any more.”
The growth in population in this country has been fuelled by mass migration. When I was a boy, the population was regularly cited as being about 57 million or 58 million people; the ONS now estimates that by 2035, the figure is likely to be 72.5 million people. Leaving aside the pressure that that places on public services and the economic damage it does, the truth is that the character of our country is being changed beyond recognition, and overwhelmingly the British people resist and resent that change, which has happened without their consent. Ministers know that there is a cultural problem. In August, the Home Office published a book for newly arrived asylum seekers that said: “If you have sex with someone” who does not want to, “this is called rape. Rape is a serious crime”. The fact that the Government believed that those arriving were so primitive that they did not know that is extraordinary, but the truth suggests that they were right. There have been numerous cases. Just this week—I am not going to get the pronunciations right—we saw the sentencing of Hossein Mohmoudi, a 36-year-old Iranian man who came to Britain. He was convicted of raping a 43-year-old woman and has been sentenced to 11 years in jail. Karin Al-Danasurt came to Britain on a small boat after fleeing Egypt, where he had been convicted of a murder. In the UK, he has been convicted of gang-raping a woman on Brighton beach. There is the Turkish asylum seeker convicted in Stafford Crown court in January for raping an 18-year-old girl. There is case after case of those coming here without our values, with no loyalty to Britain, no intention of making a positive contribution to this country, and committing serious and violent crimes, very often against women and girls. We are now in a position where one in eight prisoners is a foreign national offender, with a total of more than 10,700 foreign nationals in our prisons. A large contingent come from Albania, whose countrymen make up 10% of foreign nationals in jail. The number of foreign nationals in UK prisons for drug offences makes up 20% of all offenders. The number of foreign sex offenders in prisons went up by 10% last year. Analysis from the Ministry of Justice last year confirmed that foreigners are convicted of up to 23% of all sex crimes. We hear from the Liberal Democrats that this issue is not about race, but it is certainly about culture.
My right hon. Friend—a former chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which I am proud to serve—will know that this is a national security issue, as well as an issue of profound concern to our constituents. The Government should see it through that prism as well as through a number of others. It is certain that there is a cultural mismatch between these people’s understanding of what is right, good, just and decent, and the understanding of the British people. Very often, their way of life is simply not compatible with ours. Foreign nationals are 71% more likely than Britons to be responsible for a sex crime conviction. The rates based on convictions per 10,000 of population put Afghans, with 77 convictions, at the top with a rate of 59 per 10,000, 22.3 times greater than that of Britons. This is a cultural crisis. We are admitting people to this country who do not share our values and, frankly, do not really want to share our values, so the Government need to get real and do so quickly. There is a huge gulf here. There is the assumption of the liberal establishment, who believe in cultural equivalence, that there is no such thing as western civilisation. We heard from the Liberal Democrats’ Front Bench, with an extraordinary paucity of understanding, that human rights began in 1947. They have never heard of the English common law, it would seem. They do not know about habeas corpus. They do not understand that free and fair elections existed long before the ECHR, or indeed that the lawful entitlements we call rights did not originate with that document.
I will not, because I am coming to the end of my speech.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is an urgent matter, because the failure of successive Governments to deal with it has created a belief among the population that Governments do not care and Parliament does not understand. Until we address that, we will undermine the very character of our democracy.
I appreciate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) will respond to the point on farms, but before the shadow Chancellor moves on, does he agree that one of the many examples of foolishness in the Government’s approach to a tax on the inheritance of farmland is that there is a challenge with the age of farmers? We need more young people in farming, and if the Government make it more difficult and expensive for those young people most likely to go into farming—namely, the children of farming families—they will exacerbate that primary problem.