My Lords, I, too, am delighted to speak in this debate, and I am grateful to the noble Earl for enabling us to discuss and focus on these important issues.
Too often, when it comes to developing economic growth strategies, rural Britain is overlooked in favour of cities and conurbations, and I recognise that at times my own party has been guilty of that. However, harnessing the talents and skills of rural Britain is absolutely key to the future success of our nation. The noble Earl mentioned national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. I should be grateful if the Minister would agree to meet me to discuss a long-standing application from the Forest of Dean to become an area of outstanding natural beauty. We do not have a pop-up village but we do have cheese-makers, micro breweries, the excellent Three Choirs Vineyards and so much else.
As we have heard, people who work on the land make a huge contribution to the rural economy through farming and food production, and horticulture and forestry, protecting and conserving our environment for future generations and managing the impact of climate change. Yet many of those who work on the land, rather than own the land, work very long hours and are still too often poorly paid. I still lament the abolition of the agricultural workers board, which, based on the Government’s own impact assessment, will remove nearly a quarter of a billion pounds from the rural economy. As the noble Earl, Lord Arran, said, rural poverty is still a huge problem and, sadly, food banks are flourishing. Apparently 4,000 people in the Stroud district alone have had to resort to going to a food bank in the past year.
Many of the back-breaking and poorly paid jobs are now filled with people from eastern Europe and further east. It is not just in urban areas that we depend on immigrants to undertake those tasks which we no longer wish or choose to fulfil. However, the countryside today is about much more than farming and the growing tourist industry; it needs a sustainable third sector and successful businesses to thrive, as well as good public services. We need to invest in the infrastructure and businesses that drive rural economic growth, and we also need to invest in the people who live and work there.
In rural areas there is an ageing population and a high rate of youth migration. That presents a unique set of challenges and places pressures on local goods and services different from those experienced in urban areas. We want our young people to flourish, to have a good education which enables them to choose either a vocational or an academic path, and to have the skills and confidence to take advantage of opportunities in the wider world, but we also want to provide opportunities in rural areas for those who wish to stay or those who wish to return. To my shame, I do not know FACE, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, but I will seek to find out more about it.
We have much talent in our country and coastal towns, as well as in more rural areas. Young people should not have to leave because of a lack of jobs or because of housing costs. We have extraordinary people,
including many volunteers, who are doing much to sustain and bolster our rural communities, but there is a role for an active state to support them, be it broadband or buses, affordable housing or accessible healthcare.
I am delighted that so many noble Lords focused on the crisis in affordable housing in rural areas. New homes are desperately needed and their construction drives local economic growth. On average, households need to earn £66,000 a year—more than three times the average rural salary—to be granted a mortgage to purchase a rural property. In Gloucestershire, for example, the average house price is 11 times the average wage and it would take a private rental tenant 15 years to save for a deposit in order to get a mortgage for a home. I am very proud of Two Rivers Housing in the Forest of Dean. It sustains a well maintained housing stock and builds eco-friendly homes, but many more are needed. Recently it received 360 applications for just 12 homes built in my neighbouring village of Littledean on a rural exceptions site. This is clear evidence that people desperately want to stay in their local communities.
The National Housing Federation is surely right when it says:
“Local people on modest incomes—who sustain our rural communities—are being priced out of the market, out of their communities and into towns and cities where there is cheaper housing and higher paid work”.
What are the Government doing to identify land in rural areas which can be used specifically for affordable homes? As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, rural housing associations have been hit very hard by the bedroom tax. Lack of smaller homes means that even when people are willing and able to move they cannot be rehoused, so they are now in arrears and struggling with debt.
Beyond housing, the rural population—particularly young people—need to know that they will be able to find jobs which they can develop into a career. However, recent developments will not give them much confidence. Rural workers’ wages have risen slower than those in the rest of England, and rural families are already spending £2,700 more on everyday goods compared with those in urban areas.
Many noble Lords have rightly focused on the Government’s broadband rollout, which is so crucial to skill development. It is, however, delayed, and so much so that in Chew Valley in north-east Somerset—as the noble Baroness will know—they are having to turn to the independent supplier, Wansdyke Telecom, for broadband rather than BT. Infrastructure is critical to ensuring that all our regions prosper and deliver the growth and jobs necessary for our country’s success. Today my right honourable friend Ed Miliband has accepted the recommendation of a report by Sir John Armitt to establish an independent national infrastructure commission to identify the UK’s long-term infrastructure needs and hold government to account. I very much hope that the Minister will join my party in accepting this recommendation. We believe that these things are too important to be left to short-term political decisions taken in each Parliament.
As has been said, transport is a huge issue. Rural households annually pay nearly £1,000 more for transport than those in urban areas and this figure is rising. The noble Baroness spoke graphically about the problems and isolation caused by lack of transport. In Somer Valley, for instance, commuters face a 23% increase in their bus fares, with some tickets costing more than the hourly minimum wage. Yesterday I was with the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association which made me aware that the limited availability and continuing decline of bus services impacts particularly on blind and visually impaired people who are reliant on those services. The lack of audio-visual final destination and next stop announcements, particularly on buses in rural areas, is a barrier to independence and work. What are the Government doing to ensure that all new buses are fitted with this technology?
A healthy economy needs a healthy population and healthcare in rural areas faces specific challenges which are very different from those in the urban environment. Last year, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee reported that,
“rural authorities receive lower grant allocations, spend less on social care, charge more for home care and allocate lower personal budgets than those local authorities serving urban populations”.
In February, the BMA warned that nearly 100 GP practices could be forced to close and that large areas of rural England could be left with no GP practice because of national funding cuts. I was interested to learn of the launch of an initiative in Cumbria, headed by the University of Cumbria, to help improve health services in rural communities. The Cumbria Rural Health Forum will focus on how best to address challenges, including the distance people travel to healthcare, managing services for the older population and poor-quality broadband and mobile services. Will the Minister support such an interesting and important initiative and, perhaps, see if it could be rolled out in other areas?
I understand that the Government do not store national statistics on the NHS, but is the Minister aware of the impact of the cuts that have been made in rural GP services? Surely he must acknowledge that, because of the ageing rural population, having a reliable and accessible GP is absolutely critical and that any loss in the service could be potentially disastrous. Of course, social care has its own problems in rural areas, especially where there are long distances for people to travel to provide the necessary care.
This week my noble friend Lord Adonis published an excellent report on how we can mend Britain’s fractured economy and put devolution at its core, ensuring that prosperity is shared throughout the whole country. For too long we have had a centralised system, which is not only unsustainable but wastes talents and skills. In counties such as Devon and Cornwall, Cheshire and Lancashire, and Derbyshire and Northumberland, the economic potential is clear but waiting to be unlocked. This means working with businesses and industry. The RDAs were making inroads but these were abolished for ideological reasons without real thought about the future. We now have LEPs and we must build on their important partnerships. One of
their important tasks is to nurture and help our entrepreneurs to grow. The right reverend Prelate mentioned the plight of micro-business.
Many people in our rural areas are bursting with ideas but lack the confidence or support to grow to the next level which would enable them to employ more people and develop their market, be it local, national or international. I have met many inspirational people who have succeeded. For example, Neill Ricketts of Versarien, which is based in Mitcheldean, is working with our major universities and developing innovative technology and products, such as graphene, which will provide engineering solutions for the future. We need to celebrate their success. It is a role model for others and can inspire our young people, who can then maintain their lives in our rural areas. Too often, success is hidden. I have to confess that I was unaware until recently that I live two miles away from the only British-owned manufacturer of road sweepers, Stocks Sweepers. Great things are happening, but too often these are hidden exceptions and are not the norm.
The case for rural investment is clear and has been well made this afternoon. Labour would devolve £30 billion of central funds to regional councils, enabling them to have the power they need to shape their own communities. Building on the knowledge they have about what works best in local areas, councils would be able to invest in the skills and networks that they need. We need strong economies around the country to share the wealth of the recovery and counterbalance the dominance of London and the south-east. By harnessing the individual contributions that people in rural areas make, we can create an economic recovery which works for everyone in the country.
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