Rural Communities

Dave Robertson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh Newbury]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I must confess that I am a little envious of her, because she has the Mayor of West Yorkshire backing up the Labour Government and using that investment wisely—and, I hope, making use of the powers introduced by that Act—whereas the Conservatives on Staffordshire county council took absolutely no interest in doing so during their time in power. The recent news of Reform UK’s cost-cutting review suggests that our bus services will continue to be neglected.

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his kind words and his campaigning on this issue. As I am sure he well knows, Rugeley Trent Valley train station serves a very rural area—the footprint of the station is mainly in my constituency—but it also provides access to the west coast main line for his constituents. It is not accessible by a bus service. Does he agree that we should be extending bus travel, so that people can get to a train station by bus and get all the access and opportunities that come with that, rather than having what we do at the minute, which is a legacy of Conservative failure?

[Josh Newbury]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. I would add that Rugeley Trent Valley also does not have disabled access, which is a big issue. The two of us are campaigning hard on that, and I hope to see some progress on it this year.

Following the shameful revelation that Reform chose a supporter of white supremacy to lead our county council and the fact that the DOGE unit has yet to visit, Reform has just announced a cut of £1 million to concessionary fares in the coming financial year. Transparency clearly is not in its vocabulary, because Reform refuses to say who will be affected by these cuts. We cannot slash £1 million from the concessions relied on by thousands of residents without having an adverse effect on them, particularly in rural communities. While this Government are giving councils more money for road repairs and public transport, Reform-led Staffordshire county council is filling even fewer potholes than the Conservatives did, and bus services are not improving as they should. The rural communities that were let down by the old Conservative party are now being let down by the new turquoise conservative party.

I would love to have said much more, including on mobile phone coverage and healthcare, but I will finish by saying that the clearest way to support our rural communities is by standing with the farmers who put food on our tables, and by ensuring that our constituents can get around on reliable buses and can access healthcare that is just as good as that enjoyed by people in big cities, because rural Britain is and will always be a vital part of our nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

People would be forgiven, when reading the motion put forward by the Opposition today, for thinking that all was rosy in the countryside before the election in 2024, but in Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages—a countryside seat that is 85% rural—people know that that was not the case. They know just how important it is that Government take the concerns of rural communities seriously. They also know that despite more than three decades of representation by a Conservative MP, successive Conservative Governments have treated them with disdain.

There is perhaps no better example of the disdain that the Conservatives showed for communities like mine than the story of High Speed 2: Conservative Ministers asleep at the wheel while HS2 Ltd treated landowners in areas like mine like they were a completely and utterly ignorable sideshow. It has gone on for decades. I have spoken to farmers in my patch who have been dealing with HS2 for 17 years and still have not had final payments made to them. Delay after delay, disruption after disruption—it is an absolute disgrace. Years of roadworks have caused massive inconvenience, farmers cannot farm their land despite it not being built on and business planning has been put on hold for years.

The Conservatives say they care about our agricultural communities, but what did they do when our farmers suffered under that project? Things got so bad at HS2 under the Tories that this Government had to bring in a new chair and a new CEO to clean up the mess that was left. In fact, Mark Wild, the new chief executive, has experience of cleaning up Conservative messes—we only have to look at Crossrail.

Beyond that, there are further transport issues that affect farmers and rural constituents in my patch. Chetwynd bridge is a fantastic example. It is a bridge that crosses from my patch into that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). It is the largest cast iron bridge left in the country. It is grade II listed. It is a wonderful piece of architecture. It is incredibly useful and very pretty. Unfortunately, Britain’s largest surviving cast iron bridge has been neglected for decades. Deterioration in the structure was first spotted in the ’70s, but Staffordshire county council does not have a plan for how to fix it. It knows that it will cost £27 million, but it does not know how to fund it. The council did not speak to me before the spending review and, in fact, waited until Reform UK was in control to get in touch, after which spending review decisions had been made. I am working hard to try to find that £27 million to replace the bridge, and I will be meeting the relevant Minister next week.

These are real-world examples of where Conservative MPs, Governments and councils did not do the work. They said all the right things—they were quite happy to go out there and dance and make their statements—but they did not do the work. They did not go out there to actually defend communities like mine, and I will take absolutely no lessons from them.