MP Patrick Spencer on building on flood-prone Suffolk areas

On Monday afternoon, the House of Commons was host to a five-hour debate where several MPs had the chance to discuss the impacts of the government’s budget on rural communities.

Patrick Spencer, Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, focused his speech on flooding as a significant problem across the county, particularly after Storm Babet.

He said: “People living in Wickham Market, Needham Market, Framsden and Charsfield were forced out of their homes - some are not yet back in.

“People were traumatised, exhausted and facing financial oblivion after insurance companies used small print to stop paying out on the damage caused by the flooding.

MP Patrick Spencer speaking in the House of Commons (Image: Parliament TV)

“All these places were hugely impacted by Storm Babet and I believe the impact was made exponentially worse by huge housing developments cluttering our countryside.”

He argued the changes made to agricultural property relief, a type of inheritance tax relief, announced in the budget would only exacerbate the issue by forcing family farms to be sold rather than passed down.

From April 2026, the full 100% relief from inheritance tax will be restricted to the first £1 million of combined agricultural and business property, with landowners made to pay 20 per cent tax above this amount.

Although the government has stated the changes would not affect the majority of farmers, Mr Spencer stressed the effect would be the opposite.

He said:  “[Big landowners] will dodge it, much like many of the well-heeled business people always do with taxes.

“The people who will bear the brunt of the Labour Party’s tax policies are small farms - family farms - that do not have a huge amount of capital.”

This, he suggested, was meant to free up land to allow for the government to meet its 1.5million extra homes target, leading to a worsening of the county’s problems.

This is due to the low permeability of Suffolk’s geology which causes streams and rivers to become overburdened and leads to fields being waterlogged and eventually flooded.

More housing, Mr Spencer said, would mean extra water run-off and more risk of flooding for residents.

“If we continue to concrete over fertile farmland, of any soil type, we will increase that risk,” he added.

“If we continue to use the Suffolk countryside to solve our housing crisis, the consequences will be disastrous.”