It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbours, my hon. Friends the Members for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax). I hope that the House will allow me to make some comments, although I am at risk of repeating what they said. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), whose quest to hold this important debate we all thoroughly backed.
It is clear to me that this House does not give enough time to debate and discuss the rural issues of the day. We have some important questions to ask ourselves. Why is levelling up not focused on rural areas in the same way it is on urban areas? Why does rural hardship not seem to matter in the same way as urban poverty? Why do rural jobs attract less pay than those in urban areas? Why does Transport for London get £1.7 billion of Government money to bail it out yet Dorset Council gets hardly anything—especially when we have the worst frequency rail line in the country? I just wanted to let the Minister know that.
I do not want the Treasury Green Book to prioritise rural areas; I want it to be fair to all parts of the United Kingdom, including rural Dorset. Why do sixth-formers— 16 and 17-year-olds—in rural Dorset have to pay to get on the school bus, when those youngsters do not have to do so in urban areas? In certain pockets of West Dorset and, indeed, the wider Dorset area, social mobility is among the worst in the country. The real levelling up required in this country is in rural Britain, which is why I am so delighted to contribute to the debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset clearly articulated some good statistics. I also have them in my speech—he has pinched them—but let me focus on a couple. It is totally unacceptable to me and my constituents —and, I think, to my constituency neighbours—that we have one of the highest council taxes in the country but zero revenue support grant, yet in places such as inner London there are boroughs with the lowest council tax in the country that receive some £24 million in revenue support grant.