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HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI am grateful to my hon. Friend because she makes some important points. Ahead of the Budget, there were lots of predictions about what would happen. Of course, what happened is…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI see the hon. Gentleman nodding. He is well versed in that; he knows.04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesThere is nothing daft about putting this country’s finances on a sound footing. I say to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, if they want a decent health service, schools and…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesNo, I do not. For the reasons that I outlined earlier, I think that it will act as a disincentive for people to do that.04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. As I said earlier, throughout the last five years in opposition, I was a consistent supporter of the agricultural transition,…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for promoting me to Secretary of State—I hope he has similar success in the coming hours. The hon. Gentleman raises a whole series of…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesExtreme weather events have clearly become a growing challenge for us all, which is part of the reason that we are so determined to make the transition to a more environmentally…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesWhen we came to power a few months ago, the thing I was asked most strongly to do was to provide stability for the future. Through a series of interventions over the past few…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI look forward to many more such exchanges over the Dispatch Box with the hon. Gentleman. What I said earlier was that on my many visits around the country, people consistently…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI do not agree. If the right hon. Member looks at a number of the more thoughtful commentators in the debate over the last few days, he will see that there are some very different…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesWe will back British farmers, by making sure that they have a stable system in which they can flourish.04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI think the hon. Gentleman will know that the definition of a farm is actually rather complicated. That is what makes this quite a difficult debate, and I am not going to comment…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesThe hon. Gentleman is a well-informed, thoughtful person, and I listen closely to what he has to say on these issues, but I do wonder sometimes about the Liberal Democrats’…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesThe hon. Member asks what we did. What we did was look at the farming budget and ensure that we protected it, to allow his constituents and constituents across the country to take…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesAt no point did I say that farming families did not understand the detail. What I asked was for Members on the Conservative Benches to look at the detail, because when they look…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI can give my hon. Friend that assurance.04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesMy hon. Friend is absolutely right; many people in this country, and many farmers in particular, are struggling to get by. That is why it is very important that in this Budget we…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesI love visiting farms all over the country, and I am sure North Dorset will feature on my list at some point in the future. On this whole question of optimism, pessimism and the…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesIt was striking that under the previous Government the agriculture budget was so substantially underspent. We are fixing that and making it possible for people to access those…04 Nov 2024HANSARD Budget: Implications for Farming CommunitiesThe right hon. Gentleman says decades. I think it was in 1991 or 1992 when the current rules were introduced. I can absolutely assure him that we are now on track for a stable…04 Nov 2024