Gideon Amos

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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1,432 held · 750 searchable for Gideon Amos. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 10.

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1. “It is possible for someone to ready themselves if they know that fireworks are coming or that explosions will be happening in their neighbourhood, but indiscriminate use can be really affecting. When it comes to animals, we know that many die as a result, including horses, dogs and wildlife. I agree wholeheartedly with the petitioners’ concerns about the use of fireworks, for all the reasons they set out. At French Weir Park in Taunton, a private display on new year’s eve nearly turned into a disaster. After a big display put on by private individuals using the park at midnight, a big pack of spent fireworks was placed beside a group of litter and recycling bins, perhaps with the aim of being helpful. Unfortunately, it was left still smouldering; the fireworks had not gone out.”

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2. “It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. Thank you for the innovative heads-up on who is next on the speaking list. I too extend my thanks to the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for opening the debate and taking so many interventions. Noisy fireworks, especially at times when they are not expected—outside the given days for fireworks, such as new year’s eve, Diwali and Chinese new year—cause real distress and, as we have heard, injury. I thank the 269 and 276 from Taunton and Wellington who signed the petitions on firework noise and on organised displays respectively for bringing the issues to Parliament’s attention. Particularly affected, as hon. Members have said, are those who suffer from PTSD and those with autism. We need to take their concerns a lot more seriously than we have.”

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3. “We stand ready to work with this Government in a constructive way on their new towns programme, but only if it provides the financial investment that is needed so that it is a success and, crucially, so that existing towns do not lose out. It must commit to long-term investment over and above land value capture, so that local councillors and mayors are not left out in the cold, trying to promote these projects with one arm tied behind their back. Finally, the programme must recognise that, in a society under threat from climate change, environmental ambition needs to be at the forefront, learning from the very best of the garden city ideals.”

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4. “Since then, almost another £1 billion has been repaid from further land sales and receipts from that investment. It is a sound investment. No doubt the Treasury will say, “Don’t worry, the market can deal with this. We don’t need any public money.” But markets do not look 50, 60 or 100 years ahead. Markets do not know how to build communities with facilities for real people—the kind of people that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch spoke about. We need long-term financial investment from the Government so that these schemes will be successful. Without it, we risk repeating some of the failures of the past.”

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5. “We are therefore disappointed that the Minister, I think, said to the Select Committee that there is no pot for new town funding, and that poses a real risk that the £3.9 billion a year funding for the affordable housing programme will be used to fund the new towns programme, inevitably taking money away from other areas. Although the land value capture model that the Government are promoting is welcome and we support it, it will not be enough. As many Government Members will know, the original post-war new towns had significant, 60-year Treasury loans. They were worth about £4.7 billion; that is about £140 billion today. Those loans were repaid—not just in full, but with a surplus coming back to the Treasury. The bulk of it was repaid in 1999.”

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6. “For urban extensions, promised and needed GP surgeries have never come forward, including in Orchard Grove in my Taunton and Wellington constituency and in Bicester in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock. Will the Government ensure that existing communities will not lose out on GP surgeries as a result of new towns being given those facilities? These vital relationships with existing communities need to be resolved. Infrastructure for transport, water, energy, health and active travel must come first, and before the housing. Let me turn to the financial support that these developments will need if they are to be successful. All these things cost money—we recognise that.”

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7. “There is a 41% increase in local plan numbers in my Somerset council area alone, for example. On social impacts within towns, the pre-war garden cities and post-war new towns were 90% social housing. In the Select Committee, the Minister indicated that the Government may be walking back from the 40% affordable housing target. What is the minimum that they will accept? Infrastructure is needed by new and existing towns, particularly those affected by these plans. For example, Ardley station is needed to serve the Heyford Park new town and the existing community. Other forms of infrastructure also too often go missing, and that is true not just of new towns.”

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8. “Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch said, it is vital to respect the identities of the places in which these new towns are located. Will the Minister commission a rapid sub-regional plan process for the councils in each of these locations so that they can resolve the issues? He has already indicated that he may, but will he visit in due course all these locations, so that he can engage with the local communities concerned? As other Members have asked, will he confirm—I think he said he said that he was thinking about it—that the planned housing numbers will indeed count towards local plan targets imposed by the Government’s standard method? It will be impossible for local leaders and local councils to develop these new towns at the same time as trying to deliver the impossible housing targets that many of them are facing.”

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9. “The Government are engaged in the ongoing strategic environmental assessment, which I welcome, and it may assess some of the impacts, but there is no plan that involves local authorities in resolving these decisions, in taking decisions about how the new towns, such as Heyford Park in Oxfordshire, will land in their midst, and in considering how such developments will affect the existing network and hierarchy of towns and communities. There is a missing link with strategic planning, and it needs to be put back. That would allow the community-led approach to these developments that we want to see and allow affected local authorities to have their say. After all, the location for Milton Keynes was negotiated between central and local government. As the hon.”

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10. “Any spatial development strategy is going to come after the event, as the new towns have already been designated. Parish councils such as Somerton in Oxfordshire, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is working hard to advocate for, have pointed out a range of simultaneous proposals in Oxfordshire, including the Oxfordshire strategic rail freight interchange, 280,000 square metres of warehousing at Baynards Green—which, coincidentally, is being considered today by Cherwell district council—the Puy du Fou leisure park, and many other developments that will collectively generate 47 million additional trips per year.”

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11. “For over 100 years, as he said, that trust has been able to fund and care for the environment and put money back into Letchworth as a community. That provided a great model. In another reflection of how garden cities provided the basis for new towns, Milton Keynes’ Parks Trust does exactly the same thing. Where such estates have not been sold off, as has been described in relation to other new towns, that is an incredibly successful model. As Members have said, it is vital to endow the public realm and the environment with the resources and investment needed to sustain them for 100 years. Turning to social impacts and infrastructure, we Liberal Democrats would like to ask the Minister how councils and communities are going to make decisions about the impacts of the new towns.”

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12. “These new towns must set the highest standards for nature protection. They need well-insulated homes that are cheap to run, with solar panels on the roof, as promoted by the sunshine Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). They need district heating and cheap heat, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) pointed out—that is good for the planet, as is good public transport that does not pollute and jam up the roads. Those ideas were pioneered by many of the garden cities. As the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) explained well, the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation endowed the environment with assets and resources so that it would continue to be protected into the future.”

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13. “Garden cities are not just words; as we have heard, they were the basis of the new towns of Letchworth and Welwyn, and of many others. “Let the countryside invade the town” was one of Ebenezer Howard’s cries. I often wonder whether he wrote those words at the very desk that is in front of me, because his day job was as a parliamentary Clerk. In his spare time, he wrote a radical piece called “To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform”. It did not sell very well, so a year later he renamed it “Garden Cities of To-morrow”, and that book laid the foundation for the garden cities and new towns that were to be built throughout the country. He was surely right to espouse a vision of how people and nature, town and country, and society and the environment can thrive together. He was right then, and surely that vision is right now.”

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14. “That investment must be sufficient to ensure that housing is genuinely affordable and will offer a decent home in a good environment, in all senses of that word, as hon. Members have expressed it in many different ways throughout the debate. On environmental ambition, I regret to say that garden cities seem to have been airbrushed out of this programme —unintentionally, I hope—in ways that are out of keeping with the post-war new towns programme. What was originally called the town garden in Stevenage was a great reflection of how the garden city principle informed and provided the basis for the new towns. The Garden City Association campaigned for a new towns programme before the war. Now it is the Town and Country Planning Association—I should probably declare an interest as an honorary, voluntary vice-president of that organisation.”

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15. “That is why we have a big ambition of 150,000 social homes per year, which is above the Government’s current target. However, new towns must not come at the expense of existing communities and towns. My hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches are engaging in a positive and constructive spirit with a range of new towns on their boundaries, alongside the Government and local communities. New towns must deliver in social terms—the homes provided—but also environmentally and economically, as the mark 1, 2 and 3 new towns did so successfully. In our view, three critical principles need to be met: new towns must be environmentally ambitious, they must be successful in social terms—that means infrastructure— and there must be long-term financial investment.”

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16. “I express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for a really engaging speech about how it is the people who invest their lives in the community who make it what it is—a sentiment that I am sure we all share. I have learnt a great deal more about new towns from hon. Members across the House, and it has been a privilege to listen to the debate. In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats committed to 10 new garden cities, so we welcome this debate and the Government’s ambitions for new towns—depending on how they are implemented, of course. It is vital to have a new generation of major communities, given the terrible state of affordability that the housing sector got into under the Conservative Government.”

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17. “The Minister is always very generous with his time. Can I press him a bit further on whether the Treasury has ruled out the long-term loans that were there for the post-war new towns programme?”

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18. “The hon. Gentleman is making a strong case for the whisky industry. Does he recognise that the cider industry in my part of the world in Somerset is deserving of good treatment because of its support for agriculture? It used to benefit from a duty of 40% that of the wider beer and drinks industry, but that has crept up. The average is now about 75%, and the duty on some classes of cider is now more than the duty on beer. Does he accept that that differential should be restored to support agriculture?”

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19. “Fully 5 million leaseholders were plunged into the dark before Christmas and thousands report feeling angry and abandoned. Why, then, are the Government choosing to delay their ending of the feudal leasehold system? Will they go further and follow the calls from Lib Dems and others to regulate property agents and to cap extortionate service charges?”

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20. “Leaseholders are being hit increasingly with flood risk and difficulty in getting insurance. Rockwell Green in my constituency has flooded twice in the last seven years. Why are the Government proposing to weaken the rules preventing development in areas of high flood risk, and how many homes will be affected in future by more flooding as a result?”

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21. “I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance), on bringing this vital question to the House. As a fellow south-west MP, the Minister will know the massive impact that this issue has not just on Somerset, but across the whole south-west. Given the answers to earlier questions and the fact that he seems unable to confirm that this matter will be decided before the next financial year, do the Government recognise that they are putting into doubt not just the NMH, but the very ability to produce uncrewed helicopters in the future? In other words, if we do not get the NMH, we will not have uncrewed helicopters in this country any more, because Leonardo will have gone. Is that a risk worth taking?”

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22. “The hon. Gentleman is an expert in this area, but if every lever needs to be pulled, should not the cap on sitting days be removed? That would make a far bigger difference to the process of clearing the backlog than removing jury trials.”

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23. “Health and social care workers fear not only exploitation, but that promises may be retroactively broken by the Government. Will the Minister confirm that the promise of indefinite leave to remain after five years for health and social care workers at Musgrove Park hospital in my constituency will be honoured?”

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24. “To take one example, there is the abolition of the town centre-first approach for retail development, but there are many others that will undermine that plan-led process. There is a particular need to look at the cumulative impact when it comes to flooding. The Environmental Audit Committee has recommended that the Government revise the guidance on the cumulative impact for flooding for this very reason. Many of the developments being discussed will not carry out cumulative impact assessments because they are outside the local plan or are sub-EIA development. I ask the Minister whether and to what extent the Government will carry out that review. Flooding is a massive issue for Rockwell Green and Hilly Head in my Taunton and Wellington constituency, which has been flooded twice in the last five to 10 years.”

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25. “As another seasonal reference, I am forced to consider what would be the cumulative impact of stables being used under permitted development for change of use to emergency temporary accommodation for young mothers. The point that I think the right hon. Gentleman is really getting to with cumulative impact is the prolific number of permissions that are coming about outside the plan-led process. The plan-led process is so important because it is where cumulative impacts can be properly gauged and established. Any development that is not in the local plan, unless it has an environmental impact assessment, is not going to carry out a cumulative impact assessment. That is why we are so concerned that the Government’s recent announcements will undermine that plan-led process, with so many loopholes.”

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26. “I will move on to the more serious points of the debate about the cumulative impact of housing development. I fear that it is worse than the right hon. Member for East Hampshire surmises, because although I remember from my A-level economics that, in a perfect market, increasing supply should reduce price, we need to remember that in any locality in the country, we do not have a perfect market in house building. We have usually one supplier, maybe two, controlling the supply of homes to the market, drip-feeding them to sustain their prices. Any private house builder that went into business to reduce prices would rightly be punished by their shareholders. Putting private house builders in charge of reducing house prices is a bit like putting Herod in charge of childcare.”

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27. “Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) were here instead of me. I say with some hesitation that I am hoping to go home before that, because it has been something of a week for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I am not quite sure how the Minister is still standing—he is sitting down now, but must need a break. Knowing the Minister’s prodigious amount of activity this week, perhaps tomorrow we will have three Bills and two White Papers coming out and I will be brought back here, but hopefully not. Yesterday, we were debating quarrying and planning—it was a blast. I did not know that I would be getting up and sitting down so many times on MCHLG business this week, but one could say that the Chairman of Ways and Means shapes our destinies, rough-hew them as we may.”

    House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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28. “It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate. It is a truth universally acknowledged that an MP in possession of a majority, however big, must be in want of a debate, so I am full of admiration for the right hon. Gentleman staying tomorrow to debate Jane Austen in Westminster Hall. As for myself, I am hoping to get away before that, so this will be my last appearance before Christmas. I therefore take the opportunity to wish hon. Members, the House staff who look after us so amazingly well, the officials, yourself, Mr Twigg, and even the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) a very merry Christmas, although I know he would prefer that my hon.”

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29. “That figure, as my hon. Friends have explained, so clearly and starkly demonstrates why the challenge is not the issuing of planning permissions, but how to get those permissions built out. We urge the Minister to use much stronger “use it or lose it” measures to tackle unbuilt permissions. I welcomed the statement that he made in the summer about taking forward such measures, but we have yet to see anything really happen in that regard. We need to remember those who cannot afford homes, and that however many private house builders provide more private homes, 99% of them will be out of reach of people who cannot afford a first home. That is why we need there to be social homes, but we also need a new generation of rent-to-own homes, so that people can get on the home ownership ladder at an early stage in life.”

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30. “Cognisant of the market conditions that exist in relation to private house building, we would focus on public investment in a programme of 150,000 social and council rent homes. In fact, we have never met the housing figure of 300,000 per year, except when we have had a big programme of council and social housing. With that element missing, private house building has bubbled along at more or less similar levels; third sector housing has increased somewhat. The big missing element has been council and publicly funded social homes. For the reasons that I have set out, without a massive injection of such homes, we cannot rely on private house builders to increase supply in any meaningful way, however many permissions above and beyond the 1.4 million homes that have planning permission already, but are not being built, are given out.”

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31. “It is a very serious matter and could affect areas across the country—not only Rockwell Green in my constituency, but places far further afield. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) made excellent points about the need for cumulative impact to be properly considered. My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) felt that plan-led development in his constituency was in jeopardy. I agree: after yesterday’s announcement, I feel that plan-led development is in jeopardy everywhere. The Saunders Lane development in Woking is a classic example of where proper consideration of cumulative impact is required. The Liberal Democrats would pursue a different approach.”

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32. “My hon. Friend makes a massively important point—absolutely, they should be statutory consultees. He gives me the opportunity to raise an even more serious concern. From careful reading of the Government’s snappily titled consultation on statutory consultees, alongside the ministerial statement of 10 March this year, it appears—I hope the Minister can put me right—that they are considering cancelling and withdrawing the direction that prevents councils from granting planning permission, against the advice of the Environment Agency, in flood risk areas. They are certainly consulting on that basis, so I hope the Minister will clarify whether that is the intended approach and how many homes in flood risk areas he expects will be permitted, against the advice of the Environment Agency, if they go ahead with that change.”

    House of Commons17 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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33. “For example, over the 600 metres under the Canadian rule, 100 dB from quarrying—a common level of noise from a building site—would degrade to around 40 dB. That is a typical level for background noise in residential areas—it is a little higher in cities. It has to be recognised, of course, that topography and other factors play a part in those calculations. Subject to assessment, Liberal Democrats would set in planning policy a buffer zone of 600 metres to 1 km for new quarrying consents. Local communities, through their elected councillors, should be empowered to impose such a zone and to make exceptions to it only in wholly exceptional circumstances. Sadly, the Government are going in entirely the wrong direction on the voices of local people being heard in planning.”

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34. “While imposing a buffer zone on an existing quarry—such as requiring a distance to residential properties to perhaps a kilometre—could detrimentally affect its operations, the imposition of some sort of environmental limit, as planning permissions already do, is an entirely reasonable proposition. Some have argued that introducing a buffer zone could be devastating for the thousands of jobs in the sector. If that is the case, it would be equally devastating, not to mention reckless, to suggest no buffer zones or limits at all between quarries and residential properties. Presumably, even the most ardent quarrier is willing to stop when they reach someone’s garden wall or the threshold of their front door. Therefore, in a very real sense, the question is where to draw the line. The Canadian example has much to commend it.”

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35. “Flirting with climate deniers, the Conservatives want to reverse a position they once held, announcing that they will continue burning petrol in vehicles around people’s homes, schools and neighbourhoods. While it is welcome that the Government have set out a delivery plan for nature’s recovery, we are waiting for a commitment to a new clean air Act and for them to get on with giving regulators the powers and resources they need. Instead, we are seeing unacceptable cuts to DEFRA—and therefore to the Environment Agency, which among other things regulates quarries—of 1.9% in real terms this year. I turn now to the issue of buffer zones around quarries, which some hon. Members have raised.”

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36. “While life expectancy in Somerset and the south west is higher than in other regions of the UK, in my constituency it differs by 10 years from one side of my hometown, Taunton, to the other. A report from Public Health England in 2018 attributed 250 deaths to black carbon—unburnt fuel from motor vehicles. As with quarries, there is little people can do about these sort of environmental health factors, but they still shorten people’s lives, sometimes by years. Therefore, as well as controlling quarries, we must do all we can to encourage people to replace their cars with zero emission vehicles at reasonable costs that they can afford. The Government must hold firm against the Conservatives and Reform, who seem no longer to care about that air pollution or the related deaths it causes.”

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37. “On housing, the Liberal Democrats differ from the Government in that our ambition is for 150,000 council and social rent homes per year—but, to the extent that new homes are needed, we agree that quarrying in the UK needs to continue apace rather than be curtailed. None the less, health and wellbeing of the public is the main priority of the Liberal Democrats, and must be the main concern in this debate. We would therefore pass a new clean air Act to cover not just quarries, but all air pollution, based on World Health Organisation guidelines and enforced by a new air quality agency, including funding for local pollution centres and a new vehicle scrapping scheme for cleaner transport. Clean air is important not just around quarries, but across all our communities.”

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38. “Notwithstanding that finding, the impact of dust in residential environments is a genuine concern rightly held by many residents, and a potential hazard. As we have heard, the new Environment Act targets would reduce PM 2.5 concentration levels to no more than 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040. People also suffer wider immunity impacts from the dust, noise, vibration and flyrock that quarries emit. The fact that PM 10 and PM 2.5 pollutants can travel further than 250 metres and that IAQM guidance is under review emphasises those effects and immunity impacts. We must also remember that quarries are vital to the building of homes and other needed infrastructure. According to the Mineral Products Association, UK quarries produce 177 million tonnes of aggregates and support thousands of valuable jobs.”

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39. “Studies by the Health and Safety Executive have shown that respirable silica dust, inhaled over prolonged exposure—for example, by workers who do not receive proper protection—is potentially carcinogenic. It can lead to silicosis and other respiratory diseases. Environmental impacts from the dust, which could affect local residents, are therefore a concern to those who spend time near quarries. HSE studies of those environmental effects in 2002 and 2003 led it to conclude that no cases of silicosis have been documented among members of the general public in Great Britain, indicating that the levels of environmental exposure to silica dust are not sufficiently high to cause the occupational disease.”

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40. “It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) on securing this important debate, which is of real concern to not only his constituents but those of Members around the country. As a child growing up in Somerset, I well remember the occasional roar of the neighbouring Dulcote quarry, which is now worked out. I no longer live near a quarry, so I do not experience the very genuine issues and concerns of those who do. In particular, significant concerns have been raised about respirable silica dust, especially when the particulate matter is PM 10 or smaller, which means that it is fewer than 10 micrometres across.”

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41. “A new direction will force councillors to report to the Secretary of State and get his permission before they can refuse anything more than 150 homes, and we are told that there is more centralisation, and more community and nature bashing, to come this week in forthcoming announcements on the planning system. We need quarries and we need development, but unless the Government change direction, we will have forgotten the most important lesson: that we develop for our environment and for people, not in opposition to them. In a world where a staggering 73% of global wildlife has been lost in the last 50 years, we need to save the remnants of nature for everyone’s sake, and we need people’s voices, and the safeguards they desire, to be heard in the process.”

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42. “I accept that further assessment is needed before the policy is finalised, but the experience in Canada shows that the distance is appropriate for reducing noise. At the moment, no buffer zone at all is set as standard, as I have pointed out. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not be the quarrier I described quarrying up to someone’s front door, but a buffer zone of some sort is needed. Clear and understood safeguards, such as a buffer zone, or something similar to the 21-metre back-to-back standard for houses, give people more confidence in the planning system and enable them successfully to live side by side with development, but under the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Secretary of State will remove decisions from local councillors and the people who elect them.”

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43. “Will the Minister reverse the abolition of BNG for 0.2 hectare sites, and go with the 0.1 hectare limit that environmental non-governmental organisations call for? Will the Government increase their target for social and council-rent homes from 18,000 per year to the 150,000 per year that we Liberal Democrats wish to see, or at least to the 90,000 per year that Shelter wishes to see? Finally, will the Government go further and ensure that the 1.5 million permissions for homes are subject to real “use it or lose it” powers before new homes are created?”

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44. “The framework rewrites and overrides the policies in local plans. For many authorities, the value and purpose of all the expense that they went to in writing a local plan will be called into question. I have only one minute, which is simply not enough time to debate the most significant rolling back of planning controls for decades, so will the Minister hold a debate on the framework in Government time, so that all hon. Members have the chance to debate it? The framework will have much more impact than the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which recently went through Parliament. Will the Government upgrade the framework’s wishy-washy mention of chalk streams, and recognise them fully as irreplaceable habitats?”

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45. “Although I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement, I fear that it represents an unprecedented removal of power from local people and local government by a Government who appear to have given up on sustainable development as a driving force behind decision making. The cost-benefit statement reads like it was written in the Treasury. It sees only the benefits of development, and none of the costs to communities or nature. Under the new framework, sustainable development is no longer the pre-eminent principle. The framework means widespread development in the greenbelt. The presumption has so many holes in it that buildings put up for any purpose, including under permitted development, will now be green-lighted for development across the open countryside. Lorry parks in green fields will be green-lighted.”

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46. “What does the Minister have to say to those at Mr Miles tea room as they work to keep the lights on in the high street? As the owner of the other great Winchester pub in my constituency, the Winchester Arms, has pointed out, pubs have to pay business rates according to their turnover. What other business is subjected to the disincentive that when they increase turnover, their property rates increase? The answer is none. What Taunton and Wellington residents and high streets needed from this Budget was a boost.”

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47. “Philippe, a partner of The Little Wine Shop, which is a fantastic brasserie in my constituency, tells me that the Budget means “less hours for my staff, therefore less revenue for the treasury” as he is closing one day per week. He says: “we will stop employing young people (16 years old)” and “I have 3 members of staff leaving by mid-March, I will replace only one if I am still open by then! I AM FUMING!” What does the Minister say to Philippe in my constituency? We have discovered since the Budget that hospitality rateable values have increased, helping to cancel out the new multiplier. For another business owner, Mr Miles, although his valuation has actually gone down by 10%, his business rates bill has gone up by 12%.”

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48. “Cider is worth £150 million to the south-west economy, but cider makers are struggling. One in my constituency has pointed out that orchards take 10 years to become mature, demanding contracts of 25 to 30 years. Cider plays a huge role in supporting our agriculture and maintaining the countryside, so it delivers a public good. However, the fact that it represents only 6% of the sector means that it is much more vulnerable to duty changes and price changes. What cider needed from this Budget was a 5% duty cut to put back the original differential with beer duty. Hospitality believed that its rates would go down—it believed the famous “permanently lower business rates” promise—but they have actually gone up.”

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49. “In just the past few months, we have seen The Winchester open in Castle Green, Tap One in the independent quarter and The Chapel Tap in the town centre. I thank all those business people who are committing to Taunton and Wellington and opening businesses in our area. However, these hospitality and drinks businesses are not sharing the joy this Christmas from the Budget, and neither are our farmers. The Lib Dems would not have levied the family farm tax—I voted against resolution 50. Instead of abolishing the penal anti-forestalling clause as many have called for, the confirmation of the transfer by the Government of the £1 million allowance between spouses and partners, though welcome, does not go anywhere near what was needed. Hospitality and drinks businesses are worried about increasing duty and business rates.”

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50. “In contrast to the Budget and its effects, so much about business in Taunton and Wellington is on the up thanks to the enterprise, community spirit and business nous of people there. In Wellington, the new community hub in the Kings Arms—with a café set to open in the new year—where I held my surgery last Friday, is a huge success thanks to volunteers such as Cliff and many others. New units are going up in Westpark, and new retail and food outlets are popping up all over the town. In Taunton, footfall has jumped by 2.1%—four times the national average increase of 0.5%. Lots of independent shops, such as Dosha Wellness and The Little Cheese Shop, have recently opened. We have great pubs and restaurants, too.”

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