Levelling Up Rural Britain

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Oliver Heald

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

As a Member of Parliament for a very rural constituency, albeit one in the home counties, I see all too clearly how our system of government tends to focus on the problems and needs of urban society in the UK and tends to neglect rural communities, which are so important to sustaining those urban environments. I therefore welcome the debate, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing it.

Rather than issuing a shopping list on behalf of my constituents, I am going to say something a bit more general about how we design, or do not design, rural policy in this country that will affect levelling up. We have had too many changes of DEFRA Ministers. I mean no offence to the new incumbent who will reply to this debate, but those Ministers have had differing priorities, and have experienced difficulty in holding other Departments to account for the effects of their decisions on rural areas. Local stakeholders are left feeling disengaged, and there is confusion among those who look after our rural areas, who tend to be the people who work there. Levelling up will not succeed unless this changes.

The House might be aware that I have long taken an interest in the need for Whitehall to develop a greater capability for strategic thinking in order to address the huge challenges that we face as a country, in domestic and environmental policy as well as foreign and security policy. I was Chair of the Public Administration Committee and then the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and we did three inquiries on this topic over a period of nine years. I continue to take in interest in the subject with an informal group that held a conference at Ditchley Park recently, attended by the Cabinet Secretary.

Rural policy is crying out for a long-term strategic approach that will be sustained on a cross-party basis and so remain stable. It is slightly unfortunate—well, it is nice for us that there are not many Labour MPs cluttering up this debate, but it is unfortunate that there is not more engagement from them—[Interruption.] There is one Front-Bench spokesman, and I hope he will rise to the—

[Sir Oliver Heald]

There’s a Whip there, look!

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I think this counts as an intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker. It should be added to my time. I hope that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) will rise to the occasion.

The Ukraine war has exposed how vulnerable the global food supply system is to disruption. We cannot rely on our ability to buy food cheaply on the global market. Given today’s labour shortage in agriculture and the impact of natural problems such as avian flu, we must expect more serious shortages and even more acute price rises this winter. Food security is fundamental, but it is frequently neglected and should now be addressed by the Government. In passing, I would add that the Rural Services Network recently reported that the cost of living crisis is worst in rural areas. Food and energy price increases are already putting rural food banks under huge strain. Brightlingsea food bank in my constituency is extremely well led and co-ordinated by Win Pomroy and offers incredible support to the most vulnerable people, but let us be clear that this is a fire engine dealing with a crisis on behalf of our constituents. I am sure that every Member will want to support their local food banks.

The main point, however, is that the changing nature of life in rural communities is outpacing the ability of our relevant institutions and policy processes to adapt and stay fit for purpose. Rural areas need a responsive, adaptable policy making and strategy process to handle the complexity caused by a combination of the increasingly rapid and profound changes in the wider world and the competing demands that we place on our countryside. These include the need to optimise food production, improve food security, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, increase carbon sequestration, adapt to cope with climate change threats such as drought and flooding, enhance the wellbeing of the whole UK population by improving leisure and supporting access to the countryside, and improve conditions for wildlife and biodiversity, leaving a better natural environment and landscape for future generations.

In coastal constituencies such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, who opened the debate, there is also a need to rewild our coastal waters, revive fish stocks and restore saltings and seagrass and kelp forests to revive their massive capacity for carbon sequestration. I recommend a book by my constituent Charles Clover of the Blue Marine Foundation entitled “Rewilding the Sea”, which was launched in the House of Commons yesterday. It is incredibly ambitious, but it is important for the whole country to reconcile these often competing demands. It is not only essential but well within our grasp to achieve it. Governments must, however, take the trouble to work with rural communities across the UK rather than prescribing for them, which is how most rural inhabitants see their situation today. Rural communities, in their turn, need better processes to make their voices heard in Whitehall, and to ensure that Whitehall draws on their unique local knowledge and expertise in formulating and delivering policy.

DEFRA’s forthcoming environmental land management scheme—ELMS—replaces payments from the EU common agricultural policy, and it is due to be fully implemented in 2024. Its success is crucial to the effective functioning of rural policy and levelling up. I am afraid that the handouts from the Government for levelling up are a sticking plaster. What we need is a compressive approach to the rural economy. During its current trial phase, ELMS has been taken up by only a tiny percentage of farmers because what it offers is not very attractive to farmers. DEFRA needs to work closely with individual farm businesses to ensure that ELMS becomes fit for purpose.

New Pylons: East Anglia

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Oliver Heald

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

My hon. Friend is completely right, but the real question is: to whom do we go to get it done? National Grid says it is locked into a regulatory and planning framework and has to operate in a certain way—that the assumption must be that overhead pylons are the right solution, unless there are other reasons.

The most difficult thing in the whole process is that not even the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), is accountable for what is being decided; he will tell us, “This is the framework and this is what we have to stick to.” He will then tell us that there is going to be a new proposal for a different regime that would arrive at different outcomes, but that is not going to affect this consultation, and we will be left with decisions being forced down corralled pathways by an outdated regulatory and planning framework.

Who is accountable, today, for the decisions that are being made? Who is it? Who should we go to, and say, “You’ve got it wrong and you can change it”? If nobody can change it, it must be my right hon. Friend the Minister who is accountable. He must accelerate the new regime, which would allow us to look much more comprehensively and capably at a strategic plan. There is no controlling strategic mind in charge of planning the national grid. It is just something that happens, through an outdated market mechanism that was designed to sweat the assets of an industry that had far too much capacity in the 1980s.

We are now in a completely different world. We need a strategic planning framework, and it should be located, accountably, within the Department, so that Members of Parliament can hold Ministers accountable for what is being decided, instead of us just being shoved off into the system, where we do not seem to have any influence.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

May I express my condolences to my hon. Friend? I am so sorry to hear his news.

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a wider problem? Losing the quality of our environment is a big cost for people’s wellbeing. In this case it is utilities and electricity; in Hertfordshire, it is about the chalk streams. No value seems to be given to environmental factors. We have regulators, but it is all about doing it cheaply. Does he agree that the Government need to look at the issue again, from the point of view of wellness, the environment and preserving the really valuable things in our communities?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I could not agree more. We have environmental policies and net zero policies that are costing the earth, even though they are designed to save the earth—they are very important policies and we put a great deal of money into them—and yet we have other policies that despoil the environment and communities. The damage they do is not costed into the proposals.

In a new regime, the effect on property prices, the loss of agricultural land and other non-monetised costs of the proposal need to be reflected in the costs; I think we would then find that the offshore transmission system would provide better value for money, and for the environment and communities. If it was worked out properly, an offshore ring main around the east of England down to London, with its connectivity, an interconnectedness to the continent, and direct connectivity from the onshore nuclear power stations and the new offshore East Anglia array—incidentally, the development of offshore wind is being held back by the lack of capacity in the national grid—could be the quickest proposal, because we would not have the same planning issues that we are tied up with here.

Dare I mention the words “judicial review”? If my constituents go for a judicial review—they are very well funded and well organised, and we are backing them—how many years will that hold up the proposal? Would it not be better for the Government to cut through and say we should go for an offshore grid, which has public support and which people recognise will help us to achieve our net zero targets more quickly and protect the environment and communities? That is what we should do.

The main point I will leave the debate with is that public opposition to infrastructure risks undermining the roll-out of renewable and nuclear power. The Government must balance what is best for local communities with what appears to be cheapest. The current approach is not serving my constituents in Harwich and North Essex. The current proposals, and the regime they reflect, command no public confidence at all in the Government of this country, and should change.