Rural Communities: Prince’s Countryside Fund

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, it is not a duty but a pleasure to congratulate my noble friend Lady Eaton on her maiden speech. She and I served together on the board of the Conservative Party and have been saying for months—nay, years—that we must have lunch together. Now that her maiden speech is done and dusted to such effect, I particularly look forward to that pleasure. She comes to your Lordships’ House as chairman of the Local Government Association and from north of the Trent. I have always taken the view that Conservative Party policy on local government is best shaped by those who have had actual experience of local government and I look forward to many more contributions in this House from my noble friend on these subjects.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble on having secured this debate so soon after having taken part in the rural debate before the Recess and on having persuaded my noble friend Lord Kimball to speak, so that we have had two Kimbles for the price of one. I also congratulate him on his admirable opening speech.

Sir Francis Burdett, who was for 30 years Member of Parliament for Westminster and a strong radical, eventually retired to Wiltshire, where he became Member of Parliament for North Wiltshire, hunted three days a week and became a high Tory. After 24 years as Sir Francis Burdett’s distant successor for Westminster, I, too, have retired to Wiltshire, although unlike Sir Francis I do not hunt three times a week and our hamlet is denoted as “Lower”.

It used to be said that, if Yorkshire cricket was in good shape, so was English cricket. I declare an interest not only in cricket but in West Yorkshire, which is the global centre of gravity for the worldwide network of Brookes. In the same way, I believe passionately that, if the countryside and the rural economy are not in good shape, the whole country is unlikely to be so. The principal beneficiaries of the Prince’s fund, to which this debate is devoted, include, as has been said, the programme Pub is the Hub in Wales. Although I am half Welsh—I, too, mourn the loss of the late Richard Livsey from our debates on these subjects—I live in Wiltshire rather than in Wales. In the local government parish of Sutton Mandeville, however, we have both a pub and a church as our community buildings. The pub, the “Compasses”, has several times been voted the best in the county, which I regard as a good omen for the Welsh pub project.

The second beneficiary, I note, is the farmer network which operates in Cumbria and the Yorkshire dales and will, over two years, use the fund’s contribution to develop a hill-farmer apprenticeship scheme in Cumbria. Some in your Lordships’ House today will recall the debate devoted to the rural uplands that my noble friend Lord Greaves initiated before the Recess, in which my noble friend Lord Gardiner also spoke. Whoever else does not read the debates of your Lordships’ House, His Royal Highness the Prince clearly does because of the way in which he has devoted this aspect of the fund to the uplands, and all credit to him.

Thirdly, in this 150th anniversary year of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, whose financial appeal under my noble friend Lord Plumb is such a roaring success, the fund’s reserve for the farm charities is still a very prudent move. If my noble friend Lord Gardiner can do so at the end of the debate, I hope that he might confirm that with the personal contributions that individuals can make to the fund over the post office counter, which is said to be available as a scheme in the autumn, the first week in October counts as part of the autumn. I look forward to making my first contribution to the fund in our local post office over this weekend.