Conservatives are the only Party that will protect families and businesses across North West Essex.
Last month Labour performed their 14th U-turn since taking office. Families and businesses across North West Essex are fed up with the chaos and the incompetence.
Labour’s so-called U-turn on the family farm tax is a perfect example. After months of uncertainty for our farming community, the Government announced a partial U-turn that is weak and still deeply damaging. When I met local farmers at a roundtable in Little Waltham, they were clear about the consequences of this cruel policy: farms being broken up, land sold off, and family businesses destroyed just to pay the tax bill. Labour do not understand rural Britain, but Conservatives will always stand up for our farming communities. We would scrap the family farm tax in its entirety, because we respect hard work, property, and the rural way of life.
The same story is playing out on business rates. Labour have clobbered businesses with tax rises and their latest partial U-turn on business rates does not go anywhere near far enough. Businesses are struggling to survive. I have spoken to business owners across the country, most recently at the Cross Keys Hotel in Saffron Walden, who told me this is the toughest period the industry has faced in 30 years. Yet Labour’s temporary business rate relief excludes businesses like theirs altogether. It applies only to pubs and live music venues and even then, just five per cent of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will benefit. Labour simply don’t understand business. Conservatives do. Which is why we’ve announced we would scrap business rates for hundreds of thousands of businesses, supporting high streets, pubs and local employers, with around thousands of Uttlesford and Chelmsford businesses to benefit.
And it is the same weak leadership from Keir Starmer that’s led to their partial U-turn on social media. Last month, the Conservative Party became the first British political party to commit to introducing an age restriction for u-16s on social media. As a mother, I see the impact these platforms are having on children and I want to ensure parents feel supported to protect their children from the harmful content out there online. More than a thousand residents across North West Essex wrote to me in support of this common-sense policy. It is about safeguarding children while protecting freedom for adults. So why won’t Labour back our plan?
The party I lead will continue to stand up for the families, businesses and communities across our constituency and the country that this disastrous Labour Government is failing.
