Rural Communities

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a wide-ranging debate as a consequence of the initiative taken by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. When we think about rural communities, those of us in England usually have in mind the Yorkshire Dales, the Cotswolds or the West Country. In our minds, settlements in these areas comprise small towns and villages, and small, often isolated, hamlets and farmhouses. However, rural communities also exist on the fringes of large urban areas. For example, in West Yorkshire, where I live, the five councils together serve 2.5 million people who predominantly live in cities and towns, but there is a significant rural hinterland. In my council, small villages and isolated farmhouses high up in the Pennines share the challenges of rural communities everywhere. I beg that, when we think about rural communities, we include those rural communities as well—they too need to be in our thinking.

A huge number of issues have been raised in the debate but I want to focus on just two: the first is housing and the second is local government funding for councils that serve rural communities. The lack of appropriate housing exists in all our communities. However, rural communities have, in addition, their own particular challenges. A recent report by the CPRE highlighted a problem that has resulted in a 40% increase in homelessness over a five-year period and literally a lifetime’s wait for a home with a social rent. This report concurs with the policy solutions proposed by my party, the Liberal Democrats, and the urgent need to set an ambitious target for building housing with a social rent within a council’s local plan. To be effective, this will need to be supported as a policy by the Government and the independent Planning Inspectorate. To have a long-term benefit, new social housing has to be removed from right-to-buy legislation, otherwise the financial model is simply not viable. At this point, I shall make my usual comment that, in many cases, affordable housing is simply not affordable and so we need to think about housing for social rent.

As noble Lords have said, house prices in the countryside have increased at almost twice the rate of those in urban areas for the past five years, while rural wages have largely stagnated. The consequence is that young people are being forced to leave rural communities as a result of the housing crisis. This has a knock-on effect through the skills lost, a reduction in economic activity and vital public services being deprived of talent. An additional issue is the increasing number of second homes and short-term lets, which drive up rental prices and restrict supply. Control of the proportion of second homes and short-term lets in an area is essential to enable stable communities to survive.

That leads me neatly to consideration of the funding that the Government supply in support of rural communities. The Rural Services Network has long campaigned for a fairer allocation of funding to rural local authorities. In 2024-25, urban councils received 36% more in government funding spending power per head compared to rural councils. As a result of years of underfunding, rural councils have had to increase council tax, leading to a situation where rural residents pay, on average, 20% more per head than their urban counterparts. Rural residents receive less government funding, pay more in council tax and receive fewer services than those in urban areas. One of the ways that councils are partially bridging the funding gap is by making service provision contracts with parish councils that are able to raise income to fund basic services—for example, parks and play areas.

The question was what priorities we want to see for the next two years. For me, we must use the planning process to allocate more land for social housing, and see improved and fair funding for councils serving rural communities. I make a plea that we do not divide our communities by defining rural and urban as if they are totally separate.