Rural Communities

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

This hugely important debate is of great interest. I often speak in debates in the House, but if I raise an issue about rural areas or rural policy, it is usually tangential or an add-on to another debate. A debate wholly about rural affairs is, therefore, hugely welcome and I am pleased to take part.

I have always lived in rural Wales. I was born on a hill farm in rural Montgomeryshire, where I have always lived, and nearly all my relations are still from there. Throughout my public life—now decades old—my interest has been the promotion of the economy of rural areas, and that involves not only farming, which was my occupation, but the recognition that rural areas must change and develop other forms of employment if they are to thrive.

The report, which was so ably presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), covers a huge range of issues. One could probably speak for days on this topic, but I want to consider those areas that have an impact on my constituency. Inevitably, most of those issues are related to policy in England, but they have a big impact on Wales and particularly on my constituency. Montgomeryshire is a beautiful constituency that marches alongside another beautiful constituency in Shropshire, and many policies in mid-Wales depend on what is happening there. Wales is developing as its own nation in a great and welcome way that I support. The reality, however, is that the economy of mid-Wales is still connected and dependent on Shropshire and the west midlands, so the link between Shropshire and Montgomeryshire is important.

The four headings I want to speak on briefly relate to the cross-border issue: health care; transport infrastructure; rural community empowerment, touching on onshore wind farms; and farming, which is not covered massively in the report but is important to all of us.

The report covers the difficulty of access to health care for people living in rural areas. Strokes and heart attacks in particular require quick access, and that is problem for those living in rural areas, especially when the ambulance service is nothing like as good as it should be. Although a relatively small number of people in the west of my constituency depend on Bronglais general hospital, we depend substantially for specialist services, including obstetrics and paediatrics, on those in England, in Shropshire. A £38 million development is going ahead in Telford, which will serve my constituency of Montgomeryshire. The situation is the same in relation to orthopaedics and elective care, which are crucial.

Devolution affects how the Governments in Westminster and Wales work together. There has been a tendency, certainly with some Ministers in Wales, to want to develop a Wales solution, and that influences policy in Shropshire to the huge detriment of my constituents in Montgomeryshire. If the people developing services in Shropshire are seeking to serve their community of Shropshire, that almost inevitably points to the middle of it, which is Telford. Although the £38 million development is going ahead at Telford hospital, the area served is Shropshire and mid-Wales, so Shrewsbury should be the centre. Any sensible consideration, which looked not at two separate Governments but at the people they serve, would make investment in Shrewsbury hospital more likely. That point needs to be made here and in the National Assembly for Wales.

The second issue, which I have touched on previously, is transport infrastructure. Transport is largely devolved, but investment in cross-border issues depends on commitment from both sides of the border. There are schemes where the Welsh Government are keen to go ahead and would make the commitment to go ahead, but they require a commitment from England. When the Welsh Government are making their assessment of the value of a scheme, they know how important it is to have access to markets. From an English perspective, there is no access to markets consideration. Devolution is, therefore, resulting in schemes that would have gone ahead, because the Welsh Government want them to, falling with no prospect of going ahead at all. That is not the way devolution is supposed to work. In relation to cross-border road schemes, it is causing great disbenefit to my community. I have mentioned this on a number of occasions and I will probably do so on a number of occasions again. I hope that in the next few months, as we consider the Silk commission, we will have opportunities to return to the matter.

The third issue is tangential to the onshore wind debate. Mid-Wales and Shropshire are again linked together by the Mid Wales Connection. I should say briefly that the Mid Wales Connection takes in north Shropshire and Montgomeryshire and amounts to between 500 and 600 wind turbines on top of what is there now—there are probably more in Montgomeryshire than anywhere else. It is a monster, with about 100 miles of cable, that will completely transform the whole area. Politicians of all parties, including my two Liberal Democrats colleagues in mid-Wales, have exactly the same view as me.

[Mr Mark Williams]

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glyn Davies]

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) is here and is nodding in agreement, and I am sure that my opponent in the forthcoming election will be of the same view. We know the massive impact it will have and it is exactly the same for north Shropshire.

One important point is how the communities feel. Having a public meeting in Montgomeryshire is difficult to organise because people have to travel big distances and make a big effort—they cannot just walk down the road. Despite that, 1,500 people not only turned up at meetings I organised, but travelled, in 38 buses, all the way from Montgomeryshire to Cardiff to emphasise their point. They feel that their opinion has been completely sidelined. We sometimes read, usually in The Telegraph, that the Government are listening and that perhaps more weight will be given to local opinion and that there might be some change to the way in which planning policy works, but it is not happening. Rather than promises to secure favourable headlines, we want something real delivered. The people of mid-Wales and north Shropshire have a sense of hopelessness and helplessness about how central Government, both in Cardiff and in Westminster, are responding to the views of people living in cities and other urban areas by imposing something on rural areas that they do not want. We have to be very careful that we do not just look at numbers and the big populations, and ignore the opinion of rural areas.

The final point I want to touch on relates to farming. There is not a huge amount in the report on farming, but I want to touch on the impact of bovine TB on farming communities, which is not properly understood. This has always been a difficult issue for me. I have a good understanding of the farming industry, but I have always been involved in the local Wildlife Trust and understand the implications and sensitivities. We must, however, have a policy that deals with the issue. Most of my eight years at the National Assembly for Wales was spent as Chairman of the agriculture Committee. The position was that the Welsh Government wished to go ahead with a cull, but the United Kingdom did not. There was a mistake in introducing the legislation, so that did not happen. The Minister was removed and a new Government came in and pursued a vaccination policy, which is a reversal of the position here. We must consider all the ways of dealing with the issue to find the most effective and best way of going forward. If we can recognise that we must deal with the issue in the most effective way, there will not be so much sensitivity about it.

I would have liked to raise a number of other issues on farming, but I am conscious of time, so I will just mention how the levy is distributed for promoting food. The promotion of food in England and Wales depends on the levy for slaughter. A lot of the livestock in Wales is slaughtered in England, so the levy is available to the Meat and Livestock Commission in England, not Wales, so we are probably about £1 million down and at a huge disadvantage. We should look seriously at how to introduce a degree of fairness in the system for distributing the levy so that food promotion can follow where the animals are farmed and bred, rather than where they are slaughtered. In my constituency, an awful lot of animals go over the border to Shropshire to be slaughtered.

Finally, to reinforce the point made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs earlier in the week, it is important for everybody to eat British food wherever possible. I cannot imagine anyone not wanting to eat Welsh lamb. Why go anywhere else? Why eat anything but British beef or British dairy products? It seems crazy not to do that. If we want beer, there are microbreweries dotted all over the country, and there are two in Montgomeryshire. Why import when we have wonderful stuff at home? I appeal to everybody in Britain to help our rural areas by, whenever possible, using British produce.