Rural Affairs
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Simon Hoare(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Some 88% of my constituency is hill, wood or farmland. It is the “Vale of Little Dairies”, in Thomas Hardy’s phrase. It is a mosaic of farms, both family-owned and estate and many of them tenanted, punctuated by villages and market towns. I would willingly swap my inbox with that of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley)—who is no longer in the Chamber—because her constituency, like those of many Labour Members, seems to be full of farmers who are, with a spring in their step, welcoming the wonderful, halcyon field that the Government are offering them.
Let me make again a point that I made in an intervention earlier. I am still at a loss as to how farmers are supposed to be rejoicing, as we are told they are by so many Labour Members, with all this record investment and expenditure in rural areas, when they are being told by the Secretary of State that they must do more with less. You can have one or the other, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you cannot have both.
Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have spoken very authoritatively about the taxation changes. I am fundamentally opposed to what the Government are trying to do because of the damage that it will cause, in the long term, in constituencies such as mine and many others—particularly, but not exclusively, in the south-west. It also concerns me that many Labour Members have been told that the money raised will give them an oncology centre in every constituency, and that other wonderful things are going to happen. In fact, this is just a round of drinks when it comes the amount of money that it will generate in taxation for what may be required by the health service or by education, so I say to the House, “Please do not fall for that old chestnut.”
The Minister and I worked very closely together on the Agriculture Act 2020 and on trade issues. Now is the opportunity—I have been very clear that we had opportunities over the last few years, but they were not delivered for a whole variety of reasons, including covid, Ukraine and other things that we all know about—to have some serious, grown-up thinking about rural-proofing policies, because, as others have mentioned, the delivery of public services in our rural areas is more expensive. Our populations are sparser, and our communities are further flung. As the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) said, we do not have big teaching hospitals and so forth. The Home Office needs to give proper consideration to rural-proofing the funding formula for rural policing, and likewise with the fire service. We have the rural services delivery grant, and I hope that the Minister and his departmental colleagues are strongly making the case to both the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that the rural services delivery grant is vital for enabling rural local government to deliver the services that our communities are looking for.
In an earlier contribution to the debate, reference was made to the entirely urban-centric rubric of Environment Agency funding decisions when it comes to flooding. It effectively boils down to how many chimneys benefit from the investment. The larger the community—by definition, the more urban or metropolitan—the more likely they are to be successful in a bid, compared with a scheme that will benefit many hundreds of acres of prime farmland but possibly only 200 or 300 households. There needs to be rural-proofing.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend is hitting the nail on the head. In my speech, I mentioned that Tadcaster is unable to get rid of the surface water. That affects a few businesses, but the whole town is destroyed by those businesses not being able to reopen and having insurance problems, despite the fact that there are not enough houses under the Environment Agency’s plan. The point that the Environment Agency has to take notice of is, where does the economy build from?
Simon Hoare
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Then we can think about the impact on insurance premiums, which will close businesses and put householders out of the insurance market, with the exception of the scheme that the previous Government introduced. All these things have knock-on effects.
I think the Minister and his departmental colleagues have sympathy with the point I want to make. Across Government—it is not just his Department—the funding formula and the rubric that decides where these things go need to have a far more digital, contemporary account of the challenges in delivering services in our rural areas. It is an issue that I have banged on about in this place in the nearly 10 years that I have served my communities of North Dorset, and I will continue to talk about it because that is the right thing to do. I hope that there is sympathy for that argument on both sides of the House.
Many Members have referred to access to housing. A lot of my constituents have invested in rental properties and so on, but we all know that quite a lot of housing in rural areas is older. It could be in a conservation area, it could be listed or it could be thatched—it could be all of those things. People are trying to meet the EPC regulations for rental properties, which is putting huge, artificial and urban-centric pressure on the rural rental housing market.
The Prime Minister recently launched a very welcome initiative about skills. Again, I urge that a bespoke channel of work is carved out that looks at how we skill young people in rural areas. We suffer from a young person’s diaspora too often: the elderly retire to an area, and the young move away. Property prices go up, and people will only come back as and when they able to inherit something—that is, of course, on the presumption that the Treasury has not taken everything by that point and that the only thing they are able to inherit is a very small part of the family grave plot, although that might be taxed as well. I would urge a ruralisation of this area.
I will mention two other things, both of which begin with “d”. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned dentistry. There have been too many nascent plans for a revival and renaissance of dentistry over the years. For reasons that I cannot understand, none has come to fruition, save for the entirely skewed and bogus funding formula for dentists. All Governments wed themselves to doing something; I just hope that something will be done. The other issue is driving tests. It is very hard to get a driving test in rural areas, which deprives young people of access to work, and to colleges and learning.
In this debate on rural affairs, it is not just about the proposals for changing the way farmers are taxed. It is about the whole mosaic and rich tapestry of rural life, of which this Government currently find themselves the custodians. Historically, the Labour party has always been urban-centric, but it now has some rural seats. I hope that the Front Benchers listen to rural Members, hear the concerns that we, too, are hearing, and actually make some progress towards making life in our rural areas a little better.
Ukraine
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Simon Hoare
Alec Shelbrooke
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for that, because he touches on something very important. The drive to NATO membership accelerated substantially after Russia had invaded Crimea. Putin invited that move of the Ukrainian Government to look further to the west, as they saw their security threatened. A real analysis could be done of what Putin was doing in and around Ukraine three or four months ago. Was he probing to see what the reactions of the west would be? Was he thinking, “What could happen here? Perhaps I will focus my attentions elsewhere, in the ‘Stans or areas like that.” We have merely to read or analyse the Putin essay for it to become apparent how far this Third Reich mentality of his goes. He makes clear in that essay the centuries-held hatred towards the sacking of Kyiv, the capital of Rus. He also makes clear in that essay the countries he is going to go after—Lithuania, eastern Poland, Belarus; he basically names them. He uses the phrase “Russia was robbed”.
Simon Hoare
My right hon. Friend is hitting the nail on the head, because we know where this ends. Adolf Hitler did not accept the settlement at the end of the first world war and sought vengeance, and Putin has never taken the almost self-inflicted degradation of the Russian empire internally. He is like a bear with a sore head and that is potentially dangerous for a large number of people on the European continent.
Alec Shelbrooke
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that, as it leads on to what my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) was saying—that the analysis that Putin has gone mad, has a terminal disease or is suffering as a result of steroids is probably just our trying to understand the reasoning of an evil man. There are more history books that analyse Hitler’s motivations and what happened than are written on anything else. There are so many parallels to be drawn with the situation we find ourselves in today, because Putin has kept testing and pushing. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, when the chemical weapons were dropped in Syria it was a huge mistake that nothing was done, purely because President Obama had said that it was a red line that would not be tolerated. If we are going to tolerate it, we should not say that in the first place, because we can now draw a chronological line from that moment to what has happened.
Let us remember that Putin has caused the assassination of people in Berlin, and the Russians have blown up a NATO arms depot in the Czech Republic and launched a chemical weapon attack on the UK. All those things happened in NATO countries and all were met with a limited response, although it was notable that after the Salisbury attack allies from countries outside NATO also got together to remove diplomats from their embassies. Nevertheless, Putin has disregarded the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty, used Syria as a training ground and is agitating the situation in the Balkans.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that we must be responsible to ensure there is not an escalation, but if we do not stand strong, we invite that escalation. As I have said, we have to take a cold war approach, which means doing things that, quite frankly, will probably frighten us all, but we must make sure that the message is clear: our NATO nuclear arsenal is on the same stand-by as the Russian nuclear arsenal. We do not have nuclear weapons in order to use them; we have nuclear weapons to ensure they are not used. That is why Trident is described as a nuclear deterrent: it is a weapon used every day to prevent it from being used. If it is used, it is a complete failure of everything—but frankly we will not be here to have that argument. It is a weapon used every day to keep the peace.
Every day, we are seeing murder take place on a wide scale, at the hands of an invading country. We have not yet seen the destruction of Kyiv, as Putin did to Grozny, or the use of chemical weapons. If those things happen, there will be huge demands for intervention—not necessarily from NATO but from countries that want to help with air support. Please let us not get to that stage. As other right hon. and hon. Members have said, let us make sure that the MiG fighters can get to Ukraine. They do not have to match in numbers the Ukrainian air force because—I remind everybody—in the second world war the Luftwaffe considerably outnumbered the RAF, but that absolute determination to defend our homeland came through.
Foreign Affairs Committee
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Simon Hoare
Simon Hoare
Indeed. I asked the wrong question—forgive me.
I happen to be a broad church, one nation, moderate Conservative. I happen to believe—[Interruption.] My former right hon. Friend, the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), is doing some sort of peculiar dance of the seven veils to entice me over. I have no idea what she is doing, but I am not coming.
I am not motivated by vindictiveness. I believe that we should respect those who have an interest in issues and who can speak with authority, knowledge and enthusiasm. If this motion is pushed to a vote, I shall vote against it.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance, following the comments you have made so far. We are debating the motion on the Order Paper about the selection of Committee members, but I am interested in the context of how we got there. I seek your guidance on what weight we should put on the context of where we are today, as well as what it is in the motion.
Transport Secretary: East Coast Franchise
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Simon Hoare(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Local Government Reform
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Simon Hoare(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke
An enhancement of contribution would be a better description than more powers. My constituency includes several parish councils and a town council—I would encourage two of my towns, Rothwell and Garforth, that they need a town council. Where the contribution is not taking place is between Leeds City Council and the areas that do not have a town or parish council, on the future direction of planning policy. It is not a question of passing more powers down, but of enhancing the ability of areas to take part in sensible negotiations and conversations, and reflecting that in council policies.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is providing an interesting overview of local government. I served as a councillor for 12 years. On the point about parish and town councils, the direction of travel through reorganisation and changes of financing arrangements is clearly to give more responsibilities—to passport them down—to lower, possibly more accountable tiers. Does he agree that whereas district, county and borough councils now know that there is a capping regime, the occasional uncertainty from the Department about the precept and capping makes long-term financial planning not as easy as it could be for town and parish councils?
Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend makes an important point about some of what I see as the disconnect in long-term planning among different levels of council, from those at the top—the county or unitary authorities—down to the parish councils. One of the ways in which I hope to simplify local government is to give clear delineation and planning for a fixed period.
The key change that I am talking about is effectively to have unitary county councils, with one member per ward of 15,000 people. I have chosen that figure, but I am not wedded to it; it is simply the case that in my city of Leeds, we have three councillors representing wards of 15,000 to 18,000 people. One councillor representing those wards would have more of a direct link to those people, rather than the link’s being diluted among three councillors. That is by no means to disparage any councillor. My experience has been that the local councillors in my constituency all work hard and make a contribution to the community, but I have reached the conclusion that it is time for councillors’ hard work and the fact that new powers have been passed down to them to be recognised by paying them a much larger salary. That would allow people to take up the role of councillor and give it their full attention on a full-time basis. I proposed in my paper that that salary should be £37,481, which is half of a Back-Bench MP’s salary.
Student Maintenance Grants
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Simon Hoare(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Alec Shelbrooke
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That is why such efforts have been made to address the A-level and exam system. As someone who was outward-facing in my career at the University of Leeds, I was shocked to go to countries in Europe such as Germany and be told of worries about the standard of UK degrees because of the A-levels that were done to get on those courses. As a prime example, we had to lay on two extra modules of basic maths in year 1 of our engineering degree because we had students who could not cope with the mathematics used in engineering, although they had good grades at A-level.
That is part of a bigger picture, and the point of today’s debate—opportunity for everybody to go to university. It is all very well to say that grants should not be cut without proposing an alternative way of raising the money, but the system would become unaffordable as a consequence, limiting the numbers of people going to university. I went to a comprehensive school. My parents were teachers. I became a professional engineer and then a Conservative MP. My sister qualified two months ago as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. No money was spent sending us to private school. We went out and got our own part-time jobs to fund our way to university. I took on a private job at WH Smith when I was still at school.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My hon. Friend is telling the House in clear terms an explicit Conservative story of hard work, opportunity and meritocracy, in sharp contradistinction to the narrative from the Opposition, who were too busy thinking about their reshuffle to pray against the order and are far too busy plotting and planning to keep people in their places, rather than busting the glass ceilings.
Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is what today’s Opposition debate is about. It is not about how we best move this country forward. That is why, under 13 years of Labour government, social mobility decreased. The statistics and the facts cannot be argued with. The fact that there has been a 36% increase in those from the poorest backgrounds going to university, the fact that we raised the income at which a student loan had to be paid back to £21,000, the fact that we reduced the amount to be paid back each day, the fact that people do not start paying interest on it until they leave university, the fact that it is time limited so that it is written off after a specified time—all these are key aspects of making sure that we get people to university and reap the best of their potential.