Public Services: Rural Areas

Emma Foody 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.

Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs

Emma Foody Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), who spoke passionately about her communities. It has been wonderful to hear so many Members make their maiden speech today and over the preceding days, speaking with great pride about their constituency. I stand here today representing my home constituency of Cramlington and Killingworth, and I speak with similar pride. It is the place that generations of my family have hailed from, worked in and loved, and it is a great honour to represent it here today.

My home, and where I grew up, is a little place called Wideopen. It was once represented by Margaret Bondfield, a giant of our Labour movement. She was a shop worker and trade unionist who was the first ever woman in the Cabinet. As a former shop worker, and a trade unionist and Co-operative Member, it is pleasure for me to see in the Gracious Speech provision for the protections that shop workers deserve and need in order to make our high streets stronger.

Cramlington and Killingworth constituency was newly formed at this election. Dominated by our two new towns, the seat is made up of a further 25 villages and settlements—every single one a community in its own right. Although I do not propose to list each and every one of them now, I will fight for the support and success of them all. Our area and our communities are places of industry, innovation and creativity. Whether through coalmines, factories or the arts, my community has contributed a lot that has put it on the map.

There is a certain mention today for George Stephenson, the father of the British railways. Although the Rocket might be in Shildon, he learned his trade and started his inventions in my constituency, where my ancestors worked alongside him to build our railroads. Colleagues may recall that in “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?”—a favourite of yours, I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker—Bob and Thelma’s new starter home on a nice new estate was in Killingworth. We also have notable public art in the shape of a giant spoon, a herd of concrete hippos, and a Lady of the North in Northumberlandia.

Members my age may recall the absolutely iconic BBC children’s TV programme “Geordie Racer”. Spuggy and Wordy got up to hi-jinks at Seaton Delaval hall, our stunning National Trust property. I am sorry that those familiar with the programme will now have the theme tune in their head all day. More recently, those who watched the popular detective show “Vera” may have noticed the stunning coastline and cliffs; all too often, a body is found at the bottom of them. Those cliffs and beaches, along the coastline of south-east Northumberland, including Seaton Sluice and Old Hartley, are second to none, and they are ours. The crime rate is much lower than ITV would have us believe.

As is tradition, I will pay tribute to the previous MPs, but as mine is a newly created constituency, I pay tribute not to one but to four current and previous Members of this House. I will start with my predecessor but one, Ronnie Campbell, who was the MP for Blyth Valley for over 30 years and a great friend to many in this place. Locally, we still feel his loss. Ian Levy was elected as the first ever Conservative for Blyth Valley in 2019. I know that he cares deeply for our area, and that he will want it to prosper and our communities to thrive.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell), of course, is also our Chief Whip. It says here in my speech that he has shown me great kindness and generosity, which I can only assume was a late Whips Office edit. In all seriousness, he has been a great support to me.

Finally, I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon), who are both phenomenal advocates for the north-east, and from whose constituencies we took a variety of towns, settlements and villages. When I first got involved in politics, I was warned that it could be a boys’ club. Well, those people underestimate the girls of Sacred Heart high school, which all three of us attended. There, we were told in no uncertain terms that places like this are meant for people like us. To serve alongside my hon. Friends is a tremendous privilege.

I am proud to be in this place today, and to be able to speak on behalf of my communities on this most Gracious Speech—a wide-ranging set of commitments and actions that I know will deliver, not only for my community but across the country, and not just in housing and, crucially, leasehold reform but for our economy, our energy security and policing. I am particularly proud of the measures to support our national health service. As a former 999 call taker at the North East Ambulance Service, I know how my former colleagues work tirelessly to serve people, often in the most challenging and desperate of circumstances. It is an honour to be here and to have their back in this place. I believe passionately in the measures in this most Gracious Address, which we fought so hard to earn the country’s support for, and I cannot wait to get to work.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Christopher Chope)]

I call Harriet Cross to make her maiden speech.