Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to make a contribution to this vital debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for securing it.
Many of my constituents may wonder why I am speaking in a debate about rural Britain. I am blessed with a diverse constituency, of which the wonderful town of Redditch constitutes only one part. I am privileged to represent parts of the Wychavon district including the Lenches, Cookhill, Abbots Morton, Inkberrow, Stock and Bradley Green, Hanbury and parts of Feckenham. Assuming the boundary changes go ahead as set out this week, in future the constituency will also include the wards of Harvington and Norton, and Dodderhill, which will mean that the MP for Redditch will represent Lenchwick, Upton Warren, Wychbold and Stoke Works.
It is vital that when we speak about levelling up we do not confine ourselves to a mythical north-south divide, but consider inequalities within constituencies and the rural-urban divide. Even areas that look prosperous and, in fact, are prosperous on the surface can hide considerable deprivation that we ought not to be afraid to care about. It is right to help the most vulnerable in my constituency, wherever they live. Within the new constituency boundary there is a ward that is in the most deprived 20% nationally, in Harvington and Norton.
Although my remarks could cover a plethora of subjects important to my rural constituents, such as healthcare, the environment, planning, crime, education, speeding, agriculture and nature to name but a few, as I have only limited time, I will concentrate on three key pledges that I made to my constituents.
First, on rural transport, bus services are absolutely vital for my constituents to access work, leisure and education, and these services are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic all over the country. That is why I strongly welcome the actions of the Government and Conservative-run Worcestershire County Council, which has, with the help of the bus recovery grant, safeguarded more than 200 routes across Worcestershire that were on the verge of collapse. Unfortunately, that intervention clearly cannot be sustained forever, which is why I think that demand-responsive transport is a vital link in this jigsaw.
The plans are to expand demand-responsive transport to include rural areas in 2023, but unfortunately the county council does not have any specific support from the Government to do that, so it will have to be a trade-off between subsidising services and investing in demand-responsive transport. It would be really helpful if the Government were able to revisit the bus service improvement plan funding, as Worcestershire got nothing, but the urban West Midlands, just up the road, got more than £86 million, and it already benefits from higher passenger numbers. There are rumours of a second round for BSIP, but nothing concrete as yet, so I would be grateful if the Minister said in his concluding remarks if he is aware of any further funding that could be made available.
Secondly, broadband is an ongoing issue, as we have already heard from other colleagues, and it affects my rural constituents as well. In fact, I live in a rural area of my constituency and often need to work from home, and like many of my constituents I know the impact this has. It is not only professionals who are impacted by poor broadband access, but children and young people who need to complete homework, access education, or get involved in local community and youth groups.
I really welcome the progress that the Government have made in rolling out broadband across the country under the £5 billion Project Gigabit programme, together with the £500 million investment in the shared rural network. In fact, figures from the House of Commons Library show that more than 96% of households and businesses in my constituency do have access to superfast broadband. The data show that Redditch is one of the best-connected constituencies in the country, with average broadband speeds 28% higher than the national average.
Of course, this is great news, but as in all things, the details show that there is patchy coverage. My recent broadband survey, which I sent to 3,000 homes in the villages, demonstrated that there is still more to do. Hundreds of residents completed the survey, which was sent to villagers in Feckenham, Bradley Green, Stock Green, Cookhill, Inkberrow, the Lenches, Hanbury and the surrounding areas. I heard of many who are still living with the consequences of being in a hard-to-reach area. I am determined to continue pressing for better connectivity for all my constituents, whether they live in a hotspot or a notspot.
Thirdly, on planning and housing, it is right that we always seek to balance the two potentially competing demands of building the new homes our communities and young people need, and of seeking to preserve the reason why people live here in the first place, which is the unique and beautiful character of the Worcestershire environment. I pay tribute to Wychavon District Council, which is working with the renowned organisation Create Streets with an aspiration for Wychavon to become a leading rural authority for good urban design.
However, I must say a word about the proposed solar farm development at Roundhill, which I am afraid is not an example of good design, placemaking or sustainability. This proposal would plonk 287 acres—140 football pitches—of solar panels on good agricultural land. I have worked closely with the members of the Roundhill Wood solar farm opposition group, and as a result of hearing their concerns, I carried out a survey of hundreds of residents living in the local area to gauge their views. The overwhelming majority of course support renewable energy, but they are opposed or strongly opposed to the development for many reasons, including the in my view very good reason that this land ought to be used to grow food, especially at this time of war in Ukraine when we as a nation should be shoring up our food security. No one is opposed to such renewable energy, but it should be installed on rooftops, car parks, office buildings or brownfield land. I want to thank the campaigners for all the hard work they are doing and to let them know that I will continue to stand up for them. I do not believe that our levelling-up agenda will be served by solar farms of this scale and size.
Finally, whether people live in Redditch or the villages, everyone is worried about the cost of living and the impact on the most vulnerable, so I welcome the investment from Wychavon District Council in the form of targeted interventions for the most disadvantaged children, including speech and language hubs, after-school clubs, specialist help with maths, breakfast clubs and social mobility grants, which help those not in education, employment or training with opportunities to progress and enter the jobs market.
As we look to the Budget next week, I urge the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to continue their commitment to levelling up in rural Worcestershire as well as our town centre. Levelling up rural Worcestershire and the villages of my constituency is not done to the detriment of Redditch town centre. It is not a zero sum game—quite the contrary. By making our wonderful villages attractive, accessible and desirable, we encourage people to come to our county and use the facilities in Redditch town centre. It is a win-win that creates a virtuous circle of growth and prosperity, with more business for local shops and leisure facilities, and more residents paying taxes to fund the vital public services that we all rely on, such as the Alex in particular.
Rural local authorities still receive 37% less in settlement funding assessment per head than urban areas. So it is clear that we must focus on levelling up the whole country and ensuring that rural Worcestershire is not left behind in this essential mission.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), as all my colleagues have, on securing this debate, given the importance and the salience of the issues that she and all colleagues have highlighted.
We have had a good debate that shows the breadth and depth of the discussion and the importance of levelling up to so many colleagues across the country. We have had contributions from the middle of Scotland all the way down to the bottom of the south-west, which demonstrates the importance of this subject to so many people and communities across the country.
The Government agree, and in February—I was not in the Department at the time—we published the levelling-up White Paper, the common consensus on which is that it is one of the deepest and most profound analyses of the challenges of improving communities across the country. The White Paper has been welcomed by most independent commentators as a serious piece of work on which serious policy can be and is being delivered for the long-term good of all our communities.
The White Paper’s central thesis accepts that talent is distributed equally across the communities of all hon. Members who have spoken today, and beyond, but that opportunity is not necessarily equally distributed. It is the role of Government to seek to rebalance that distribution reasonably and proportionately to offer opportunity, prosperity and pride across all communities.
We have been clear that change will not come overnight. This is a long-term issue that has been at the fore for many Governments, of all rosette colours, over many decades. The point of the levelling-up White Paper, and of all the work done before, during and after it, is to show that the Government are absolutely serious about making progress. The contributions of my hon. Friends demonstrate the seriousness of the work already being done on levelling up not only in rural communities but elsewhere. We will remain committed to that work. Within that paper, for rural communities and for others, we have committed by 2030 to improve living standards, research and development in all regions, transport infrastructure, digital connectivity, education and skills, health, wellbeing, pride in place—this is about the vital importance people place on and the attachment people feel to their communities—and housing, and to reduce crime and ensure there are devolution opportunities. So many of my colleagues have referred to that and it is so important.
This debate is also important to me as a representative of a semi-rural constituency. I understand many of the issues and the points highlighted by colleagues because I have the pleasure and privilege of representing so many colleagues in rural areas. The beauty that those areas offer and the challenges they face have been articulated by colleagues from across the House in the past few hours. I represent part of a national park, 41 different towns, villages and hamlets, and dozens of parish councils, so I understand the challenges and opportunities that rural areas offer—so many colleagues have articulated those so well. Let me continue my five-and-a-half-year quest to read into the Hansard record the names of all of my towns, villages and hamlets by saying that only on Saturday I visited the hamlet of Wigley, which has one of the smallest schools in Derbyshire, if not in the whole of the UK. It has just been successful, thanks to the headteacher and all the staff, in opening some additional space that will allow it to increase the number of pupils it supports every year going forward. I congratulate it on that.
This demonstrates that we must talk about levelling up not just in the traditional areas where there has been more discussion about it—places such as North East Derbyshire or areas northward—but, as has been highlighted by colleagues, in every part of the country. We need to have this discussion in rural areas, semi-rural areas and elsewhere, because there will be pockets of deprivation in every part of our communities and it is vital that we try to resolve, improve and mitigate those.
I could not disagree more profoundly with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) when he seemed to be indicating that simply because colleagues come from an affluent geography they are unable to make any statements about this whatsoever. That could not be more wrong, and it shows a complete misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the distribution of the challenges in the UK. It also shows a lack of understanding of what the UK Government are trying to do through their levelling-up initiatives—this is something that the Scottish National party has failed to do repeatedly while it has been in government since 2007.
Simon Hoare
Will the Minister also confirm that nobody on our side of the House urged that we should be robbing Peter to pay Paul? It was not a question of taking money away from urban and giving it to rural areas; it was a cri de coeur for potentially more money or a more equitable and rurally sensitive funding rubric. It was not about taking money away; the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire has raised a most frightful slur.
Lee Rowley
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. What he said demonstrates the level of nuance and depth of the debate on our side of the House and the frankly cartoonish response put forward by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I hope the Minister will also agree that the real problem with the Scottish nationalist party is that it does not want the British Government to have any relationship with the Scottish citizen and that the ability of the British Government to assist in levelling up in Scotland is why they have such resentment on this. It is because there are many people in Scotland who voted to be British citizens in the referendum, which we won and the SNP lost.
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend makes a strong point.
I have only three and a half minutes left, so I will try to address a number of the points that have been highlighted by colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), along with my hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Robert Courts), for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) and for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), among others, raised the point about connectivity, be it of the physical kind, in terms of buses and public transport, or the virtual kind, in terms of broadband. They are absolutely right to advocate on the challenges that this brings. We all know that there have been challenges associated with buses in the past few years. When the level of decrease of passenger use is so profound as it has been with covid, of course we want to try to work through how we can support rural communities. That is no different in my constituency. We have to try to look at the innovative solutions that my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch highlighted with regards to a demand response to travel, while also ensuring that people have good quality bus services over the long term.
I had the pleasure of discussing many of these things with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), along with the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris)—the representative of that rural idyll—during the Committee stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made some strong points about the importance of skills, which is the subject of one of the missions in our White Paper, demonstrating our commitment to that and highlighting the importance of trying to make progress on public transport connectivity and accessibility.
Lee Rowley
Sadly, I will not as I have further points to cover.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) mentioned funding formulas. Although I am only 10 days into the job, I am very happy to talk to more colleagues about local government finance in general. I am keen to understand, to learn and to take the expertise that the all-party group and others have demonstrated over so many years to assist me in my role in the months ahead. He is absolutely right to raise the issue of park homes, as it is so important to many of us with rural and semi-rural constituencies.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) highlighted the importance of trying to get some of these points right both in terms of application processes to make applications for improvements and of making sure that central Government evaluate those in a way that works. His points on that were very strong. The triple tag team of my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for West Dorset (Chris Loder) made some very good points about the importance of enabling the input of the private sector, about ensuring that we have parish and town councils that work for the communities that they serve and also about negative revenue support grant. I have heard all of those points and would be happy to talk to my colleagues about them. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), who is an important and doughty campaigner, made a strong point about trains in his area, particularly about the Avanti Service.
My hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), for Buckingham (Greg Smith), and for Devizes (Danny Kruger) demonstrated the importance of tourism and hospitality and the importance of consideration of communities when large infrastructure projects take place in local areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes highlighted the immense importance from a rural perspective of remembering the long-term history and the reasons why these communities have developed in the way they have. As he said, the recollection and the acknowledgement of that history is so important in helping us to understand how we develop policy in the future.
In the moment that I have left, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions today. It has been an incredibly interesting and important debate, which demonstrates our ability to have a nuanced, detailed and open conversation about the challenges and opportunities that face our rural communities. By doing that, we have the opportunity to make progress in the long-term to support these communities as we develop in the decades ahead.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call Selaine Saxby for her final words.