UK Shared Prosperity Fund: Rural Areas

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Neil Hudson

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns]

I could not agree more. Rural businesses also require more support to access the broadband they need to establish and grow.

I welcome the UK shared prosperity fund, which is a central pillar of our levelling-up agenda. It rightly focuses on local stakeholders and letting local people have their say, but I would like to raise the concerns expressed to me by Harborough District Council, Melton Borough Council and Rutland County Council.

First, rural districts and local authorities have been prescribed relatively small proportions of funding. That is not a surprise to many of us, but I hope it can be rectified. Secondly, local flexibility risks being constrained by the fund’s pre-specified outcomes. Finally, the yearly spending requirements limit our ability to maximise investment spend over the fund’s duration.

For the shared prosperity fund to be most successful, we have to focus on long-term investments, but a closer inspection of the 2021-22 Red Book shows that there will be no dedicated, ringfenced funding for rural businesses, which will hit communities like the hon. Gentleman’s and mine hardest. Shared prosperity begins with the recognition that different areas have different needs, and my good friend the Minister knows my constituency of Rutland and Melton and the Vale of Harborough villages very well. In many ways, our communities are the same. They are idyllic and have an enormous sense of community. Their big-heartedness and friendliness is heartfelt and deep, and we have the picturesque rolling hills of England. Uppingham, one of my three towns, was voted the best place to live in the east midlands, and Melton was voted sixth.

We have industries that people might not associate with rural areas. Samworth Brothers makes the majority of sandwiches in this country, and Arnold Wills makes the majority of belts. We have the Hanson cement quarry, Mars Petcare, C S Ellis, which is an amazing national haulage company, and Belvoir Fruit Farms, and of course our stilton and pork pies are enjoyed around the world.

We love and want to protect our rural way of life, but we need support. Delivering services in rural areas is more expensive, rural economies are more susceptible to skills shortages, our physical and digital connectivity lag behind other parts of the UK and the geographical spread of our communities can obscure the nature of the issues that people face.

The relative affluence of some parts of Rutland and Melton means that some pockets of deprivation are too often overlooked by Government policy, which is to the detriment of rural communities. Rutland ranks in the bottom 10% of the entire country for social mobility, and I believe rurality plays a large role in that, alongside insufficient Government support. I know that the Secretary of State is especially interested in tackling these pockets of deprivation, and that is where a rural deprivation unit within his Department would make a fundamental difference. Such a unit would help it consider and understand the complex nature of rural inequalities and make sure that local investment plans take it into account. It would provide a renaissance for our rural communities.

I come to local government funding, an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) rightly raised. For too long, communities in Leicestershire and in Rutland and Melton have been coming second. Despairingly, Leicestershire is the lowest-funded county council per head in England, while Rutland County Council is expected to raise significantly more revenue through local taxation than other local authorities in England. The east midlands has the lowest level of public investment of any region in England. How can we have shared prosperity when long-term funding settlements are so unfavourable to rural areas? This is a bold and ambitious agenda, but how can our councils do more with less? We desperately deserve the funding we need.

Rutland County Council has been an effective unitary authority for many years and we are proud of our independence. We ranked No. 1 on the Impower index as the highest performing council on adult social care in the country, but we have forecast a budget gap for 2023-24 onwards. We are required to raise a shocking 80% of our revenue through taxation, whereas the national average for councils is just 60%. That means that the council tax for a band D property in Rutland is £2,200 a year, and we are talking about a council in the worst 10% for social mobility in our country. We receive £331 less Government funding per household than other councils and we have the highest council tax in the country. That is not good enough and it is not fair.

Let us then look at the position for Leicestershire County Council, in which the Melton, Vale and Harborough parts of my constituency sit. As I mentioned, if LCC was funded at the same level as Surrey, it would have £104 million more to support people across Leicestershire. This situation cannot be right, and we need fair funding. I am pleased to have secured productive meetings between Rutland County Council and the relevant Minister. I hear and hope that future funding settlements will be provided earlier to allow for better local planning, but they also need to be richer. My Leicestershire colleagues and I have worked tirelessly since our elections to try to get the Department to pay heed to this unfair imbalance. I know that it is not easy or straightforward, and that budget would be required, but we must rectify these injustices. I have raised the issue of them time and again, and I hope the Department will pay attention to them.

Let me move on to the issue of rural transport. Strong transport links are all the more crucial in rural settings, and it is fantastic that the shared prosperity fund is taking transport into account. After 40 years of promises, hope and let-down dreams, and through working with the Minister’s Department, the Melton Mowbray distributor road is finally being built in my constituency. It is going to transform the town centre of Melton and bring £160 million of investment into our amazing town. However, we have wider rural transport concerns that continue.

Community renewal is highly dependent on good transport services, but we have had recent reductions in all of our transport services, which threatens to undermine our rural growth. In Melton, the No. 19 bus between Melton and Nottingham has been cut, not only because it was being under-used, but because it would no longer be financed. Workers and students are no longer able to get from rural Melton to Nottingham for work or for educational opportunities, and businesses are suffering, as, in particular, are those with special educational needs.

In rural areas, those with SEN suffer so often because it is so difficult for them to access the services they need. I am hopeful that I can mitigate some of the loss of that bus service with the reinstatement of the train service from Melton to Nottingham; currently, there is no direct service and we have to go through the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and through Leicester. The Government kindly provided £50,000 of funding to look at my proposal to reopen it. I politely ask the Minister to remind his colleagues at the Department for Transport that we are waiting to hear back on our bid, having made our business case.

In Rutland, Centrebus is only continuing the Rutland Flyer bus and the 747 routes after demanding additional subsidies from Rutland County Council. Given what I have just said about our funding issues in Rutland, Members can see why having to subsidise a bus route is an additional burden that the council cannot take on. The Government have promised to bring forward new arrangements for rural transport in the summer, and I urge them to act now to support faltering rural transport services, because that will provide a boost.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate on support for rural communities. Levelling up throughout the entire United Kingdom must include rural communities. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, on which I serve, is in the midst of a rural mental health inquiry. According to the evidence we have taken, much of the stresses and pressures on rural communities are exacerbated by rural isolation, by the things that happen in rural communities—such as animal disease outbreaks and flooding—and by connectivity issues, with people unable to get from A to B, as my hon. Friend is explaining passionately. Does she agree that central Government should work with local government to mitigate ruralisation by allocating funding for rural bus services and broadband for rural communities, to make sure people can be connected and stay together?

[Alicia Kearns]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Whether in respect of combatting loneliness, connectivity, business opportunity or the 150 Ukrainians who are to settle in my constituency—they have started over the past few weeks—the 431 square miles of my constituency are difficult to navigate when there are no bus services.

Let me turn to digital connectivity. We have a digital deficit in rural communities. In 2021, Onward and the National Farmers Union highlighted that only 20% of people in rural areas can access broadband speeds above 24 Mbps. That is not good enough. I was pleased to get Rutland into the first tranche of places in the country that will receive full fibre-optic—that is fantastic: we will get gigabit broadband—but we need it for more communities. [Interruption.] Excuse me, Madam Deputy Speaker—I promise I do not have covid.

On job retention in rural areas, if we are to give rural areas the tools they need, we have to make sure that people know they can remain locally for jobs—I touched on some of the amazing employers in my constituency earlier. To tackle the challenges, we need local authorities to be able to think about the long term. I am concerned that unless the shared prosperity fund can be used to address the root causes of rural inequality, it will have a limited impact on our communities. That is why the Country Land and Business Association has called for the creation of a separate fund for rural capital investment. I urge the Minister to consider that. Rutland and Melton are currently developing a joint levelling-up fund bid that reflects the varied nature of our communities and business interests. I look forward to championing it in Parliament.

Let me turn to health and emergency services—[Interruption.] And I thank the very good friends one can make in this place. The Government have rightly identified health as one of the key pillars of levelling up. A 2019 report found that although older people in rural areas experienced reduced rates of mortality, poor access to services was driving health inequality. People who live in the countryside can have the most incredible, healthy and happy lifestyle, but poor access to services is a meaningful challenge.

Since being elected, I have campaigned for a second GP practice in the town of Melton Mowbray, because I believe Latham House Medical Practice is the most over-subscribed surgery in the country. If nothing changes, 45,000 people will be served by one practice. That cannot be right. When I was elected, I was told that it would take me more than a decade to get us another GP practice; that is not good enough for me and it is not good enough for the people of Melton. I have been working hard with Melton Borough Council, especially its leader Councillor Joe Orson and chief executive Edd de Coverly, as well as with clinical commissioning group chair Andy Williamson, to make sure that we get another practice and do not wait 10 years for it.

There are wider health challenges in Rutland. I promised to save Rutland Memorial Hospital and now have a commitment from the CCG that it will be saved, but we need investment so that those in my local elderly community do not have to go to Leicester—which takes at least an hour—to get ongoing care for chronic conditions. We need new funds and we need to invest in community hospitals. Indeed, yesterday at the Dispatch Box the Prime Minister championed the fact that he fought for community hospitals when he first came to this place, so I hope he will listen and take heed of the fact that we need to invest in them now.

In Rutland, we also face challenges in respect of cross-border working. Constituents of mine access services in Peterborough, Lincolnshire, Kettering, Northamptonshire and Leicester. People in the vale access services in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. We now finally have a requirement that information has to be shared across borders, but there is more to be done.

I wholeheartedly welcome the shared prosperity fund’s emphasis on community and place. As the Minister knows, our motto in Rutland is multum in parvo—much in little—and we have an abundance of pride in our county. I invite every Member of this House to visit Rutland water. Indeed, a colleague grabbed me earlier and said, “Is Stoke Dry in your constituency?” I said, “Yes, it is. Did you know that’s where they launched the gunpowder plot?” He said, “No, I didn’t, but I did once I had been there. Aren’t you lucky to have that in your constituency?” I said, “Yes, I am.” He then went on to list a number of other villages and towns in my constituency and say how lucky I was.

Rutland is an amazing place to be. The Rutland showground does events such as Birdfair, and we have recently had two incredible archaeological discoveries. The first was the amazing Roman mosaic, found in a farmer’s field just 15 minutes from my own home, which tells the story of Achilles and Hector. It has changed our understanding of Roman Britain. In so many movies, Britain is depicted as having hordes of barbarians, but we now know that there were these amazing mosaics. The Roman mosaic is described as one of the most significant discoveries ever made in the UK.

Only a couple of weeks later, there was the discovery of a 180 million-year-old ichthyosaur, the UK’s largest and most complete record of the marine reptile, which I had the privilege of touching while it was being dug up. Surely funding from the shared prosperity fund could go towards the promotion of these discoveries. I have no doubt that the scale of them means that we deserve a heritage museum and a heritage trail. We need major investment in our tourism industry that would help counteract the fact that we do not get enough local government funding. It would allow us to stand on our feet, which is all that we are asking for, but we need investment from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and I hope that we can make it a reality.

Melton too has much to celebrate in pride of place. We all know that it is the rural capital of food. We have some of the best farmers in the country who produce world renowned goods such as Melton Mowbray pork pies—yes, I promised in my maiden speech that Members would hear much of those pies and I have clearly not failed to deliver on that. We also have stilton—Tuxford and Tebbutt is the oldest producer in the world, and there is also Long Clawson Dairy. The world’s best ale is produced by Round Corner Brewing in Melton. We also have the award-winning Brentingby Gin—it did not win the international award—and Cidentro Cider, which, again, has won awards. We make amazing samosas at Samosa Wallah, and we are also the leading producers of paneer cheese, and of tofu for the Japanese restaurant market. We are the world’s capital of food, and food heritage is in our blood. We could be the home of food tourism with help from the Government.

I wish to pay tribute to Melton Borough Council and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership, which set up the new Food Enterprise Centre last year. The new Stockyard was launched only two or three weeks ago, which will provide a new opportunity and a haven of food and drink in my constituency.

I previously stated that the shared prosperity fund can deliver outcomes greater than the sum of its parts, but can the Minister elaborate on ways in which we as MPs can access this fund? I was recently contacted by the trustees of Barrowden village hall, who have, over the past six years, been working on a plan to replace their ageing village facilities. The grants that they had hoped to apply for have been wiped out by covid. We recognise that we are asking for more in a time of less, but they are looking into applying to the community ownership fund to help restore their village hall. The next bidding round is in May, and the project would be a fantastic candidate for the community and place investment priority, so I hope that I have put that on the Minister’s radar.

I would also point out that I have been fighting for at least 18 months for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to open its office outside of London in Melton. It is not just that Melton needs DEFRA, but that DEFRA needs Melton. It should not be that our policy officials are reliant on field visits to meet farmers and to understand the rural way of life. We are in the final three to home DEFRA. It is Melton Mowbray, Peterborough and York. What do we notice about that? There are two cities and one rural town in the shortlist. Only one is the rural capital of food. DEFRA should come to Melton and it would get a wonderful home and wonderful support from my colleagues.

In conclusion, for far too long, rural areas have been left behind to the detriment of our society. That is grossly unfair to the Minister’s constituents and to mine. We have a levelling-up agenda that allows us to find and tackle these inequalities, but we have to be honest about the scale of the challenges. We need: a fair funding settlement for rural local authorities; investment in rural transport and digital infrastructure; improved rural health services; improved rural mental health services; and a long-term plan for rural culture. If we do this, all the communities of Rutland, Melton and the Vale and Harborough villages will have the chance to succeed. Rutland and Melton are currently tier 2 priority areas in the levelling-up fund, so give us that chance to succeed and support us.

In February, the Secretary of State offered to come to Rutland to see at first hand the opportunities that we have and the challenges that our local authorities face. I ask him to come. My colleagues are always welcome to pop across the border and join me. I hope that we can recognise that when rural communities prosper, so does the rest of the UK. I hope that we will not have to have a debate such as this again during my time as the proud Member for Rutland and Melton.