Rural Communities: Government Support

Charles Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dr Luke Evans]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Before the right hon. Member gives way, may I just say something to her? I am sorry, but I forgot to ask her if she could sit down at 4.48 pm, so that I can get the other speakers in.

[Dr Coffey]

Yes, of course.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

And I will just repeat that the motion is:

“That this House has considered Government support for rural communities”,

because I am failing miserably in the Chair. Sorry. [Laughter.]

[Dr Evans]

Sir Charles, your failure is met by enthusiasm and has been offset as a result.

I thank my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for the point she is making. On digital connectivity, the percentage of my constituency of Bosworth with 1 gigabit has increased from 0.1% to 67%. This kind of thing gives huge opportunity to businesses and folk in my community. Is that not exactly the kind of thing that the Government want to do, in order to unlock opportunities for businesses, so that they can create new reasons for people to be in a rural constituency, apart from the beautiful countryside?

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[Dr Coffey]

I am afraid that I just do not have the time, but I am sure the hon. Member will be making a speech soon.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

You can have an extra minute, Dr Coffey. You do not have to give way, but I will give you till 4.49 pm.

[Dr Coffey]

Then I will take the intervention.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

The time limit will be six minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Mather]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

If the hon. Gentleman gives way, he will squeeze the time available to the mover of the debate to wind up.

[Tim Farron]

In which case, I really apologise—I will not give way. I apologise, Sir Charles. I do not want to be ungenerous to the mover especially.

I will finish on health, and I want to talk about cancer in particular. The reality in a community like mine is that, throughout south Cumbria, there are around 700 people having to travel each year for radiotherapy treatment to their nearest radiotherapy centre—the Rosemere Cancer Centre in Preston in Lancashire, which is excellent. That is a two, three or four hour round trip for those 700 people. Swindon has recently been allocated a satellite unit on the basis of 600 patients who would use that centre. My call is for a satellite radiotherapy centre to be placed at the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal to serve south Cumbria and to ensure that those people receive the treatment they need.

The latest figures tell us that 38% of people in south Cumbria diagnosed with cancer wait more than two months for their first intervention, and 54% of those in places in north Cumbria, such as Appleby, Kirkby Stephen and Shap, have to wait more than two months for their first intervention. We know that, for every four weeks of delay in cancer treatment, one has 10% less chance of surviving. I believe that people in rural communities have as much right to have a life ahead of them than those who live elsewhere, yet we have a funding situation that does not treat them as such. I will finish there, Sir Charles, and thank you for overseeing this debate. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I call the spokesman for the SNP, who has five minutes.

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

It is nice to see you in the Chair, Sir Charles. I commend the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) on securing this debate today—the first of many excellent contributions in this Chamber, I am sure. The Scottish Government are committed to supporting farmers and agricultural communities all across Scotland. Unlike the Government here in Westminster, the Scottish Government understand the needs of the rural communities, and the unique and important roles they play in the make-up of not only our economy but our country and its health.

Brexit has been bad for all of these of course—-the economy, our country and its health—and EU withdrawal has damaged the UK’s farming industry. It has made trade with the EU more difficult, it has led to labour shortages and a reduction in standards, and it has resulted in a loss of funding to UK farmers. The Scottish Government are committed to maintaining direct payments to support the act of farming and food production in these communities. The Cabinet Secretary in Holyrood has offered assurances that the envelopes for tiers 1 and 2 —based and enhanced—will take up by far the majority of available funding. We are of course working closely with communities to ensure that there will also be no cliff edge between the current system and moving on to the newer systems, but people of course have to do a lot more in return for their payment.

Scottish farmers and rural communities require clarity and certainty from the UK Government about future funding after 2025, and they need that right now. As things stand, we have no idea what either a Labour or a Conservative Government might do in the future. We will be listening intently to what the Minister and the shadow Minister—the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy)—have to say on the future of funding, or perhaps on which U-turns might be undertaken next. Of course, if we were still in the European Union, we would have that funding certainty through the multi-year common agricultural policy framework, which is something else that we have lost thanks to Brexit, which is of course was supported by the two major parties here in Westminster.

As those in the Chamber will be aware, agricultural policy is devolved to Scotland, and it is crucial that the Scottish Government’s policies are unhindered by this place and the threats imposed upon it by the UK Internal Market Act 2020, subsidy control regimes and a lack of a long-term replacement for that structured EU funding. Those of us who sit on the EFRA Committee heard evidence from devolution experts last week, which is worth reinforcing here today: it is high time that the Westminster Government learned how to listen to devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales because it is not only farmers and rural communities that have been affected; the damage of decisions taken in this place goes far and it goes deep.

The Scottish Government have introduced an Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Bill to Parliament to establish a new payment framework, which will begin to reform our agricultural and our wider rural support systems. One area that I want to focus on is how the Scottish Government are acting to deliver improved infrastructure and connectivity for rural communities and islands. We have heard a lot about that already today. Work is ongoing to open a new railway station next to Inverness airport, offering better connectivity and initiatives made possible by the £40 million of Scottish Government investment as part of our commitment to a fairer, greener Scotland.

We are also pushing for connections to be established between the famous Caledonian sleeper service and the Eurostar at St Pancras International. That will help join the two key services linking the highlands of Scotland with major European cities. It will further support our strategic aims going forward. The Scottish Government have invested over £9 billion on rail infrastructure in Scotland.

Finally, I want to touch on how important good quality, affordable housing is to help attract and retain people in Scotland’s communities. Between 2016-17 and 2022-23 the Scottish Government have supported the delivery of more than 10,000 affordable homes in the rural and island areas, and we have much bigger ambitions yet. On 13 October we committed to deliver at least 10% of our 110,000 targets in rural and island communities, to meet housing needs and to retain and attract people to those communities.

The Scottish Government are fully committed to supporting farmers and our agricultural communities by delivering the funding, improved connectivity and infrastructure programmes and by building the homes that we so desperately need now in those locations.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I call the shadow Minister—five minutes, please.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is always a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. As you may have noticed, I am not my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins). He is currently unavailable, so I am here in his place. I am sure he will catch up on the debate very quickly.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) on her first debate held here in Westminster Hall. She did well and made an excellent speech. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton) for her passionate championing of children with special educational needs and how their particular needs need to be met in a very specific way in rural communities. That would have been felt and heard by everybody in this room.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather) for mentioning the particular needs of children with special educational needs and how we need to make sure that they do not miss out on anything because of the area in which they live. I quickly want to thank the hon. Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for their contributions to this debate. We have had a really interesting discussion.

I want to comment on the issues around broadband. As I am sure the Minister is aware, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Latvia and Bulgaria already have at least 85% ultrafast full-fibre broadband coverage, so it is an embarrassment to us in this country that we are so far behind. In fact, we could say that if we were in the slow lane compared with the EU when it comes to our rural communities, we are in a traffic jam because the super-slow roll-out of ultrafast broadband in rural areas is genuinely putting communities at a disadvantage. We have more people working from home, which is something to be pleased and positive about, and more are choosing a rural life, but unfortunately I found out in this debate that only six homes are available in Tiverton, in case anyone wants to move there.

The broadband failure is a major loss. It impacts households and also businesses and productivity. When Project Gigabit was first announced, we were promised it would focus on harder-to-reach areas, but it is clear from Ofcom and DCMS data that the funding is being spent more on easier and cheaper-to-reach areas, many of which already have decent broadband connectivity. That is just because the Government want to be able to hit that figure of 85%. It feels as though the policy is driving what is good in terms of politics but not what is good in rural communities. Can the Minister tell me what proportion of areas not covered by gigabit-capable broadband are in rural areas and what action is being taken to address that?

We have heard from many people commenting on concerns around the availability of bus services. Someone used the phrase “rural isolation”. It is not just about getting to work: it is also about having a life, being able to connect with family and friends, and social activities. The lack of funding for local authorities has forced many communities to make tough decisions when it comes to road maintenance and the lack of availability of rural bus services. Roads are in a disgraceful state. Figures from the RAC say that there could be over 1.5 million potholes in England. I would gently say that election leaflets pointing at potholes, despite the impression they give, do not fix them. What will the Government do to deliver a solution to the potholes we have? Joking aside, 8,100 car breakdowns happen because of potholes.

Labour will act to support our rural communities where the Conservatives have failed. We will not sit back while more shops and local services disappear, while numbers dwindle in village schools so that they risk closure, and while farmers struggle to make ends meet and local people struggle with higher food and energy bills. The Government have failed to recognise that business and growth are not in competition with the environment, and that we can use the green agenda to promote business, increase skills and growth, and rebuild and protect our rural and farming communities. That is what the next Labour Government will do. We will embed rural proofing at the heart of Government and Labour policy and ensure that these areas thrive.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Thank you very much, shadow Minister. Minister—you know what the timings are.