My Lords, I oppose Clause 16 standing part of the Bill. This follows on neatly from the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, with whom I have the pleasure to serve on the EU Environment Sub-Committee.
The original purposes of the rural development fund have made a great change to the countryside, improving the quality of life and economic well-being especially of those living in rural areas that are particularly isolated and sparsely populated, such as where I grew up—Teesdale in County Durham—and also the areas that I had the pleasure and privilege to represent in the other place: deeply rural parts of North Yorkshire.
The policy statement that was published in February this year says of the Rural Development Programme for England for 2014 to 2020:
“This £3.5 billion programme will continue to include support for rural businesses to expand and create new jobs and for farmers and growers to buy innovative new equipment.”
This is under the “Preserving our rural resilience” heading, and it goes to the heart of what is perhaps another gap.
I ask my noble friend the Minister, in summing up, to show that this gap will be closed in the current aims of the Rural Development Programme—which have so well served rural communities—and to show how
this voyage into the unknown of the UK shared prosperity fund will actually work in the interests of rural areas. Therefore, my question to the Minister is: how will Clause 16 build on this and how will necessarily limited funds continue to be used for these socioeconomic purposes that have served rural communities so well?