Public Services: Rural Areas

David Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

Colleagues across the House will be delighted to know that, as we have rattled through the business today, we get to have a four-hour debate, so I welcome interventions, and will welcome anybody else making a speech.

It is genuinely a delight to lead my first Adjournment debate, especially one focusing on access to public services in rural areas. I am proud to be a rural Labour MP, so it is especially good to talk on this subject. I have given my debate the subtitle, “The Case for the Countryside”; Members can feel free to bear that in mind when making an intervention.

The key point in this debate is that we as a country need to value the people, the landscapes, and the produce of our countryside a great deal more. For too long, successive Governments have not recognised the crucial role of rural communities to our national flourishing. Up to 10 million people across the country live in rural areas like North Northumberland, and our natural landscapes and quiet places form a deep and enduring part of Britain’s imagination. Rural areas often possess enduring community, but they also risk becoming museums, full of interesting artefacts for visitors, but lifeless and neglected underneath. That is something, I am sure, that none of us in this Chamber wants. It is vital that rural communities are vibrant and full of life.

In this speech, I will outline the domino effect, by which a range of below-average rural public services, especially poor public transport, underperforming education, inaccessible healthcare and low connectivity, interact and overlap to drag rural areas down, including North Northumberland. I will also remind this place that rural Britain is a deep and integral part of our nation. As the frantic pace of life in our big cities has increased, so has our ability to extract, consume and bottle the virtues of rurality, while rural regions struggle at times to see the benefit in return. Every time we eat a meal, switch the lights on, turn the radiator up or take a trip to the countryside, we are benefiting from rural areas doing the hard work of producing and delivering, often out of view.

I have to ask whether our increasingly urban nation is committed to the flourishing of our rural areas in return, because the quality of our public services sometimes suggests that it is not. According to the Rural Services Network, those in predominantly rural areas pay 20% more council tax than those in predominantly urban areas, yet in urban areas, Government-funded spending power is 41% higher. I am not trying to set up some kind of dichotomy or competition between rural and urban areas; we simply have to acknowledge that sometimes our rural areas miss out when it comes to public services.

That spending gap impacts the practical delivery of services. In the northern part of my constituency, the nearest accident and emergency department is an hour and a half away. Many children heading out of the constituency for secondary school spend two hours a day travelling to and from school. The village of Pegswood, of 3,000 people, has a doctor for just half a day a week. I wonder how rural Britain can nurture our nation’s traditions, history and community, as well as produce the goods so desperately needed by urban areas, when its basic public services can fall below the basic standard.

Any conversation about rural public services begins and ends with transport. Rural authorities spend 4.6 times less per head on bus services compared to urban authorities, yet those living in small rural settlements travel a third greater distance than their urban counterparts.

[Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important topic to the House. As an MP whose constituency also covers part of Northumberland, I know all too well the impact on public services in recent years. A mum in New Hartley recently shared with me how the unreliability and inconsistency of the local bus service means that her son is often late for school. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is unacceptable for children to miss out on their education as a consequence of poor public services in rural areas?

[David Smith]

I could not agree more. I will come on to talk about bus services, but the situation is especially challenging in counties such as Northumberland. I certainly find that there are students in my constituency who struggle to get to school.

Getting around areas such as North Northumberland without a car is extremely difficult, and North Northumberland residents are right to be sceptical of local bus services, considering that Arriva, which runs the primary bus service in my area, is owned by an American equity investment fund based in Miami. Members can make of that what they will. From 2017 to 2022, the distance travelled by bus services in Northumberland fell by over a third—the highest reduction of any authority in the north-east. The confused status of cross-border buses makes a bad situation worse, with many people around Berwick crossing the Scottish-English border multiple times a week, and having to own multiple bus passes or buy new tickets to change services. Also, the elderly cannot use their free bus pass on both sides of the border.

Recently, I was made aware of a constituent’s teenage daughter who undertook an apprenticeship across the border in July. Emma—not her real name—lives in Berwick and was catching a bus to and from work; however, just a few weeks later, Borders Buses removed the morning bus. This young woman is now relying on taxis to get her to her apprenticeship in the morning. This is costing her family, who are not in a position to afford it, £150 a week. She endured a difficult time at school, but was thriving in her apprenticeship, yet that is now at risk.

What we need in rural areas is a publicly controlled bus system run for public service, not private profit, with an emphasis on accessibility, affordability and simplicity. As luck would have it, that is exactly what the Government are aiming for and what Kim McGuinness, the Labour metro Mayor for the North East, is seeking to introduce. She has capped bus fares at £2.50 for over-18s and started the process of bringing bus routes back into public control, and she wants to invest in an integrated public transport system that gets people where they need to go. No one expects rural Britain to have the same level of public transport as central London, but a reliable network would boost confidence, improve work and school opportunities, and boost struggling communities.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

This is the second useful contribution the hon. Member has made to our affairs this afternoon. I have two points that he might want to take on board in the considerations he is offering us.

First, public funding formulas should be sensitive to the particularities of rural areas such as Lincolnshire and his constituency, and at the moment they are not. The local government funding formula and the police funding formula, for example, are skewed towards urban areas.

Secondly, and pertinent to the hon. Gentleman’s point about transport, we need to re-dignify small towns and rural places by ensuring that the footprint of government in those places is felt. Over my time as a Member of Parliament, we have closed magistrates courts and removed tax offices. Driving test centres have been centralised, and cottage hospitals have reduced in number. When the dignity is taken out of rural places, it obliges people to travel much further to access what they need and it changes the character of those communities.

[David Smith]

Absolutely. I welcome the fact that the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon), is looking at the formula for how grants are made to local authorities in rural areas. Fundamentally, there should not be a penalty to living in the countryside or in a rural area. It is not an indulgence; it is vital to the future of our country, so we need public services in rural areas.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for his comments. We know that it costs more to deliver services in rural areas, yet rural councils are set to receive 41% less central Government funding than urban councils in the local government finance settlement that is coming up. Does the hon. Member agree that the settlement formula should consider rural deprivation alongside clustered deprivation to ensure that rural areas receive the services they deserve?

[David Smith]

People would expect me as a Member of Parliament for a rural area to say it is absolutely essential that we consider the peculiar circumstances, geography, logistics, the long-term challenges and the rural deprivation, which really does exist, when considering grants to local authorities in rural areas.

I will move on to education, which is another of the four areas I want to discuss. Assuming that children can get to school, having just talked about transport, we need to ensure that they can go to a good school that sets up their future and energises the local community, but when the school provision in rural areas suffers, so does the whole town or village, because there is no business or transport link more significant than the nearby secondary school.

The town of Berwick is extremely reliant on its one secondary school for the nurturing of the necessary skills and qualifications for the town’s economy, so when the school struggles, the town struggles. A report from 2017—I think it still stands—noted:

“Berwick is one of Northumberland’s most deprived towns. It has a vulnerable economy characterised by poor quality job opportunities, part time working, low wages and very limited education facilities.”

Berwick does not just need a better school; it needs a school that can generate a revival in a beautiful but isolated town that has no A&E, no major employer and minimal further education. Right now, Berwick deserves, and has the opportunity to build, a new world-class educational campus on the secondary school site that combines learning with further education, vocational study, special educational needs provision, local enterprise and primary healthcare. That makes the slow progress of Conservative Northumberland county council’s plan to rebuild Berwick Academy frustrating for parents, students and the whole community.

The further education point is important. North Northumberland students keep pace with their national peers up to GCSE level, but at A-level and higher education level they begin to struggle, because further education opportunities are few and difficult to access. One constituent in Berwick told me about their son who wants to be on a sports course in Newcastle that would set him up to go to university. The council is able to provide basic transport, but only to a course in the closer town of Ashington, which would not provide him with qualifications for university. Instead, his family are paying £15 a day for his transport to the educational opportunities that he needs—an unsustainable amount for basic provision.

[Imogen Walker (Hamilton and Clyde Valley) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the record settlement given to Scotland by this Government should be spent by the Scottish Government on vital infrastructure such as schools and transport for constituencies such as mine, which feel sadly neglected after 18 years of SNP Government? No SNP Members are here for this debate, unfortunately.

[David Smith]

I do not know whether I should declare an interest as a Scotsman who is the Member of Parliament for an English constituency—and proud to be so. I have seen that with my own eyes, and I agree that the record settlement that the UK Government have given the SNP Government in Edinburgh should be used well to provide for the whole of Scotland, but especially rural areas.

I will stick with education but look a little more at special educational needs. There are 588 children on an education, health and care plan in North Northumberland. Many of those with more severe special educational needs face a 100-mile round trip to access adequate education. There are not enough specialist schools nearby, or enough specialist places at mainstream schools, to support their learning. That is why I welcome the Government’s £1 billion increase in special educational needs funding—that is excellent—and I look forward to ensuring that rural areas receive their fair share of it. Rural areas get held back by a lack of educational opportunities. They need help from a broad coalition of local residents, businesses, council and Government to develop outstanding solutions that can become engines for opportunity.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful speech. I can tell him that people in the west of Northumberland share his frustration about the neglect and the contempt in which they seem to be held by the Conservative administration at county hall. I am delighted that he has picked up on the point about provision of SEN transport. Constituents visiting our surgeries are devastated by the challenges they face in getting their children into an appropriate educational environment. Does he agree that we must judge local government on the provision of those opportunities, and that residents of Northumberland will ultimately judge the Conservatives on that come the local elections?

[David Smith]

Yes, I wholeheartedly associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. Last Friday, I was in the village of Chatton, which is near the border between our two constituencies, to speak to a group focused on autism and special educational needs. There was palpable frustration in that room among 30 parents and carers who are simply unable to get the support they need from the county council, despite the additional funding. I believe that he and I can work on that together.

Let me move on to my third and fourth points, which relate to healthcare. Until schools improve, and until transport becomes more reliable, healthcare professionals will not move to rural areas. For Berwick to have an accident and emergency department, and for North Northumberland to have genuinely local primary care, we must incentivise doctors and nurses to move, with their families, into our neighbourhoods. Until they do, rural healthcare will continue to suffer.

Some 25% of rural residents are aged 65 or over, and in North Northumberland the average age is 54, but rural councils receive 14% less grant funding for social care services and 58% less for public health. Dental care provision is also extremely sparse. It is estimated that a 1,500 sq km region of North Northumberland has no NHS dentist. Imagine someone living alone in Wooler or Rothbury—miles from the nearest NHS dentist—whose tooth starts to twinge.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

On healthcare provision in rural areas, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a desperate need to review GPs’ core contracts, so that we better incentivise GPs to set up in rural areas? Would he also agree that, in areas where the ongoing need for a GP surgery is clear, integrated care boards have a role in managing that estate so it can be secure over a long period?

[David Smith]

Yes, we need to do everything in our power to encourage healthcare professionals, including GPs, to move into rural areas, where they can have a fantastic quality of life. I think there is a role for ICBs. I am pleased to see that, in my part of the world, 25% of GP surgeries in the Northumbria healthcare NHS foundation trust are working directly as a part of the trust. We should look at any option that can draw additional healthcare resource, especially people, into rural areas.

We need to rethink how we do rural care and primary care. In Orkney, for instance, I am reliably told that doctors practise in rotating shifts—one week on, eight weeks off—and pursue other work. It is certainly an unusual solution, but to provide rural residents with quality care, we may need to think and work creatively together. I welcome the Government’s work and funding to incentivise GPs to see more patients, as well as more of the same patients, and the promise to introduce 700,000 more urgent dental appointments.

That leads me to the last of the four points I would like to make.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is being incredibly generous in giving way, and I thank him for giving me a second bite of the cherry—I know he is moving on to his exciting peroration. GPs seem less and less keen to meet people face to face and still less keen to visit them in their homes, as they once did routinely, by the way, in my lifetime. Would he agree that, rather than their distribution, the centralisation of services, which seems to have been the order of the day under successive Governments on the grounds of rationalisation, is particularly bad for rural areas and for least advantaged people?

[David Smith]

I do agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It may be utopian to imagine the family doctor doing home visits, but we should always aim for the ideal. As I have said, there are particular challenges in attracting and retaining GPs in rural areas.

The last point I want to make is about digital connectivity. Any discussion of rural areas must also include the ultra-rural. It can be hard to believe, but thousands of homes across this country do not receive mobile coverage, gas from the mains or even electricity. If we split the country into urban and rural, there is this other category of the ultra-rural, and many of these ultra-rural areas are in North Northumberland. I am thinking of settlements such as Elsdon and Thropton, tiny villages in the east of my constituency, which are perhaps as isolated as it is possible to be in modern England.

Perhaps 12,000 properties in North Northumberland are not connected to the gas grid, instead relying on a mix of alternative fuels, and a handful of properties do not even receive electricity. This year, residents in the upper Coquet valley are being connected to the electricity grid for the first time, thanks to the Ministry of Defence. Prior to that, two neighbours could not put the kettle simultaneously on without both houses being plunged into blackout. I remain hopeful and excited about the promised potential of Great British Energy for these ultra-rural communities. I look forward to finding out in more detail about hyper-local and hyper-rural communities can benefit from the renewables that will come about from Great British Energy.

On top of this, BT estimates that 1,000 premises in North Northumberland will not benefit from commercial investment in gigabit-capable broadband coverage, because they are simply too hard to reach. It is a similar story when it comes to mobile networks. I can hear my constituents groaning as they listen to this, because mobile signal comes and goes as we drive up and down the constituency. Ultra-rural settlements cannot take advantage of the digital age because they can barely get online. I am thankful for the Government’s commitment to the shared rural network and to developing ways of supporting Project Gigabit so that ultra-rural communities benefit from these upgrades, otherwise we risk turning into two divided nations.

I could go on, and I am sure hon. Members would be delighted if I did—

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Go on!

[David Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend. However, I hope a few points have become clear from my remarks.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am pleased to see the hon. Gentleman in his place, both as the special envoy for freedom of religion or belief and because I understand it is his first Adjournment debate. I wish him well—he is using his time well. He has lots of time; he can go to 7 o’clock if Madam Deputy Speaker does not take exception.

One issue in my community and countryside, and the constituency I live in, is mental health—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has had the chance to mention that. The hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), who is sitting in front of me, always speaks about farmers living alone, independence, and the pressures of life, and never more in all my life do I remember those pressures being this intense. Does the hon. Gentleman have similar problems in his constituency to those I have in mine?

[David Smith]

Yes, sadly my constituency absolutely has those same challenges with mental ill health in the farming community but also in the rural community, which often comes about from isolation. People living generation after generation in rural communities are proud and resourceful. Sometimes they perhaps do not reach out for help, but I would encourage them to do that—it is always a good thing for someone to reach out for help if they are struggling, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech. He and I sit at opposite ends of our region, but rural communities across the region share similar challenges. He has spoken about mental health, and I wonder if he would comment on the problem of addiction and substance abuse in our rural communities. That is a real issue in communities in my constituency, but there are some positive community-led initiatives that local councillors have been involved in, in particular Brotton, which has a peer-led scheme called Recovery Connections in the local village hall. Will my hon. Friend join me in commending that work, and does he agree that it is important to tackle the issue of substance abuse in rural communities?

[David Smith]

I am so pleased that my hon. Friend made that intervention. I declare an interest because, before I became a Member, I was chief executive of a homelessness charity, and I was delighted to work with Recovery Connections, which is a great organisation doing great work. We have talked about mental health challenges in rural areas, but we also have challenges with drugs and addiction, which is not the preserve of urban areas. We have our own challenges, and we need support as a result of that.

Rural areas provide so much for the flourishing of the nation as a whole, but they are not receiving enough in return, especially in terms of public services, which is the subject of this debate. Public services overlap and create a network effect to either energise or hinder the flourishing of rural areas. Bad public transport means less educational access, which dampens the desire of healthcare professionals to move in and treat our sick. That issue is not easily fixed or accounted for with a simple spending algorithm, but we need to address it.

Raising the quality of public services in our rural areas will require a combined approach across Government. The Country Land and Business Association may have a point when it says that Ministers and officials across Departments assume that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has sole responsibility for the rural economy—I am pleased to see the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs in his place—but DEFRA does not have the economic levers at its disposal to unlock the potential of the countryside by itself. DEFRA has an important role, but it cannot do that itself. That power lies in other Departments and, increasingly, local authorities. We need a cross-Government approach to rural public services, and I appreciate the Minister being here today.

Rural areas are not simply urban areas with fewer houses. They cannot be approached and handled with the same calculations as in our cities because they are serving our country in different ways, whether preserving land, investing in local communities, producing our food, reminding us of our past, generating our energy, or offering a vision of the good life. To do all that, rural residents need to know that their children can hop on the bus to a good local school that sets them up for the future, that they can access primary and urgent healthcare when they need it, that they can phone family and friends without fear of a power cut, or hop in an electric car, charged by the mains, to visit them. They need to know that their nation values them and their way of living, and is determined to see them thrive. I am encouraged by all the Government are doing and have done to serve rural areas, and I encourage them, and all Members of the House, to ensure that rural Britain plays as key a role in establishing our future as it has our past.