Rural Economy

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury for providing the opportunity to debate this extremely important topic. It will be difficult to cover everything I would like to say in my allotted time. There is much to celebrate and many projects in the pipeline, but there are also some worrying trends.

Turning first to the positive, the counties of Devon and Somerset have been successful in securing government investment for the rollout of superfast broadband. This is a long-term project running until 2017 and also covers the unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset. Connectivity is vital if we are to attract new businesses and ensure that those already located in rural areas remain competitive. Even when this project is completed, it is likely that some deep rural areas will still not be connected, with large areas where more than 2 megabytes per second will be unachievable. Somerset County Council has this week committed a further £2 million, on top of the £10 million already invested, to this project to ensure it is successful. It is to be congratulated on this.

Another major investment project bringing jobs to rural Somerset is the proposed new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point. Based on a travel-to-work time of 90 minutes, this will bring huge opportunities for employment over a large area, but the FE providers must invest in the skills that will be needed to meet this demand.

A significant plank of the rural economy is tourism. This is especially true in South Somerset. We have many historic and beautiful villages but recent publicity has dented our image and is deterring visitors. I refer, of course, to the terrible flooding during the winter. This occurred at the very time when people plan and book their holidays and the media images suggesting that Somerset was “closed for business” did not help. While many flood-affected businesses are now thankfully recovering, there is evidence that bookings and visitors are down in Somerset compared to last year, which was also a bad year for floods. Many small businesses are linked to the tourism supply chain. I fear a similar effect on the rural economy to that suffered during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, when the countryside was shut down for months on end and many in the farming community, as well as businesses, went under and did not recover.

As has already been said, rural communities are suffering the loss of services and facilities. People have lost the habit of supporting local businesses. This is partly related to prices and the desire to use cheaper supermarkets, but also to shopping online. The phrase “Knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing” springs to mind. The past 10 years have seen large numbers of village shops, small garages and filling stations, post offices and rural services generally, become unviable and close. My own council finds it difficult to resist a change of use on premises in rural areas when it knows that domestic dwellings have far more monetary value than redundant shops and pubs. Once a local facility is lost there is little chance of reversing the process. The loss of these facilities causes a real sense of isolation for the elderly who would have used these outlets to keep up with the latest gossip. It would also have been a means for ensuring that those who were frail and needed assistance were known about and looked out for.

Lastly I would like to comment on the plight of young people and young families in rural areas. The lack of affordable housing in rural areas means many young people can no longer live and work in their local communities. South Somerset has a low-wage economy but house prices are relatively high. In one market town the average wage is around £17,000 but the average house price is around £170,000. Many noble Lords will think that this is cheap, especially if they live in London, However, there is a huge affordability gap and many young people will just never get on the housing ladder. Wages in remoter rural areas will be even lower, while house prices have been pushed sky-high because our villages have often become the target of second-home owners, who visit on the odd weekend.

Current youth unemployment statistics indicate that 2.46 million young people in England and Wales are out of work or trapped in underemployment. This is 40% of the youth population, compared to 28% of adults aged 25 to 64. Many of these will be in urban areas, but rural communities also have problems with finding jobs for their young people. There is a lack of apprenticeships to meet their needs. Young people often suffer a double whammy. While those in rural areas are transported to and from school by bus during their education, as soon as they need transport to begin their road to independence, there is nothing for them. If their village has a bus, it will only be during the working week and perhaps just one or two a day. There will be nothing in the evenings when they wish to hang out with their friends, or go to the cinema in the nearest town, which might be some 15 miles away.

It is not just the young who suffer from the lack of transport. This also affects the elderly. A trip to the doctor’s surgery, the library or just into town for a cup of coffee and a change of scenery becomes a major expedition which may require a costly taxi trip. Having recently broken my leg and having had recourse to taxis both at home and here in London, I can bear witness to just how much more expensive a taxi journey is in the countryside compared with London; it can be as much as one-third more.

There are many other areas that I could cover, including the loss of employment land, the reluctance of some communities to welcome housing development, the viability of our market towns and the skills agenda, but I am sure that others will cover these areas during the debate. Sadly, there is no magic wand to be waved here, but I look forward to the Minister’s comments at the end of this interesting debate.