Rural Areas: Public Services

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for securing this important debate. I declare my interests as a district councillor and a vice-president of the LGA. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, on his maiden speech. I am sure that this will be the first of many contributions that he will make to debates in this Chamber.

As noble Lords will know, I live in a delightful rural area in Somerset, close to the Dorset boundary and, therefore, close to the south Jurassic coast, with its fishing ports, its pebble beaches and swannery. All this is, indeed, an idyllic situation which many city dwellers envy. However, this masks the lack of public services which many of those living in populated urban areas take for granted: they would feel deprived if they had to exist without their benefit. Local authorities of all sizes and types across the country have suffered severe cuts since 2015 and have made alterations to the way in which they deliver services, to try to bridge the gap between spending and dwindling income from central government. In some cases, this has led to very innovative and successful ways of service delivery. In others, it has led to outsourcing to private companies, which has also been successful. Regrettably, this is not always the case. Sometimes the level of service delivery has been far less than when provided by the local authority itself. Staff, despite TUPE, have been laid off and service users have been left distressed and unhappy. Then the private provider, finding that it is unable to make the level of profit it thought possible, has handed back the contract causing further upset and change for service users. When the contract involved is one providing day-centre services to adults with learning disabilities, this is doubly upsetting for those involved.

Cash-strapped local authorities are finding it increasingly hard to deliver the level of service that residents require. Libraries are closing or open for only very limited hours, often making it impossible for those at work during the day to use them. For more and more people on zero-hours contracts, earning the minimum wage and with no certainty about the hours they will be offered to work, buying a paperback is a luxury. Libraries were provided for just such people to be able to enjoy the pleasure that reading books can bring. With broadband extremely patchy and unreliable in rural areas, as we have heard, it is often to the library that people turn to fill in their job applications online as they seek employment.

The rural economy is struggling. Connectivity is poor, broadband is non-existent in some areas and, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, businesses and farmers are finding it extremely difficult to function without a reliable internet connection. Businesses rely on being able to make regular contact with their supply chains and their customers. There are more SMEs per head of the population in rural areas than in urban areas. These businesses deserve a decent broadband speed in order to survive.

Not only are libraries becoming a scarcity; the local bus is also becoming an endangered species. Bus companies find it more profitable, understandably, to provide services in and around urban areas where there will be plenty of ticket-paying passengers to cover their costs, but this leaves those in villages and hamlets stranded. I know that I have spoken about this before in the Chamber but, unfortunately, the situation has not improved. Weekend bus services have been axed and weekday services drastically reduced. Even where there are buses they pick up in the morning, take their passengers on a circuitous route to the town and drop them off, returning far too quickly to allow them to complete their personal shopping, visit the opticians or dentist and carry out their business at the bank before returning. Some may wish to visit the council offices to discuss housing benefit; perhaps they have a hospital appointment. The alternative is an expensive taxi home or a long wait for the only other bus that day, in what may be a draughty bus shelter or station, encumbered with their shopping.

I will refer now to children and young people and I welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, on young people. Living in a rural setting can mean that they have more freedom to wander than their urban-dwelling equivalents. If old enough, they may be allowed to negotiate the roads safely, to visit the play park with their friends or to gather around the abandoned bus shelter. The rural bus shelters provided many years ago were often built of brick and stone, with proper tiled rooves. These make excellent meeting places for young people after school. After all, no one else will be using them since the buses do not run after 6 pm, if they run at all. Young people like to hang out with their contemporaries. They chat, laugh and support each other. Often, the bus shelter is the only place they have to congregate. The cinema or bowling alley is in the town and requires both a lift and money for the entrance. If they are lucky, there may be a youth club or some provision in a neighbouring village but that again requires one of their parents to provide transport. For those younger children coming home on the school bus, having their friend over for tea is not possible unless they travel on the same bus and live in the same village. Choice is limited and, despite the internet, some children can feel very isolated and lonely. So too can the elderly who, having lived all their lives in their village home, find that they can no longer drive. Some of their friends have passed away or moved to be nearer their families but they are left dependent on the weekly bus to meet a friend for coffee in the nearby town. All this is, unfortunately, very negative. Mercifully, people choose to live in rural areas and enjoy their lives to the full while they are able-bodied, fit and in well-paid employment.

I turn briefly to rural housing. Those who have a home are often reluctant to see large housing estates built but they welcome smaller developments to meet local people’s needs. Currently, housing developments of 10 or fewer dwellings do not have to provide affordable housing. This is a great mistake. I do not subscribe to the theory that only the well-off should live in rural areas. It is essential for society that a full range and mix of incomes, religions and people can live in rural areas and bring the richness to their communities that we all want from life. I fear, however, that the deadly squeeze on public services is making it increasingly difficult for this to happen. Can the Minister say whether the Government are thinking of abandoning the 10 dwellings policy for affordable homes in rural areas? I look forward to his response.