Fairness at Work and Power in Communities

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

In Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee year, it is an honour to make my first contribution to a Queen’s Speech debate. I very much look forward to celebrating the platinum jubilee with my constituents.

The topic of today’s debate is fairness at work and power in communities, and as I am sure the House would expect, I will focus on rural communities. I am incredibly proud of my rural community of North Shropshire. On Sunday, I was lucky enough to attend a “Songs for Ukraine” concert in Oswestry involving nearly 200 local schoolchildren, brilliantly hosted by Ukrainian sixth-formers Lisa and Myra, showcasing the amazing talent of young performers from across North Shropshire and bringing together hundreds of families to raise over £11,000 for vulnerable people fleeing a dreadful war. This is North Shropshire at its best.

It is abundantly clear to me that rural communities like mine and so many others across the country, from Shetland to Somerset, feel taken for granted by this Conservative Government. “Levelling up” is a catchy slogan we have heard time and again, but there is very little of substance for those in rural areas, and I am afraid that the Queen’s Speech offers nothing to help them. In fact, the Government compiled a 140-page background briefing note on the Queen’s Speech, but the world “rural” is used only four times, and two of those were in a list of Government Departments.

I will describe the situation in the lovely town of Market Drayton, which is a fantastic place to visit for those who can get there. It is a pretty, medieval town with attractive buildings and, since fairly recently, a large amount of housing development, but it has only one, very infrequent, bus service, which is being reduced. By the end of August, there will be no weekend bus services at all. Those who do not drive will have to rely on friends and family to make the 25-minute journey for out-patient appointments at the hospital in Telford. A taxi costs more than £50 and, on the minimal public transport available, the round trip will be in excess of four hours. It may as well be an island. Young people here struggle to access work, let alone achieve fairness when they get there.

Limited and decreasing public transport is not unique to Market Drayton. Across the market towns of North Shropshire and the rest of rural Britain, isolation from work, social opportunities and health services are limiting opportunity and quality of life for rural communities, which need access to reliable bus services.

Colleagues might think that the Government are on this—after all, they committed to “bus back better”—but I am afraid to report that this is yet another catchy slogan with no meaning. How many times does the briefing paper on the Queen’s Speech mention buses? Have a guess. The words “bus” and “buses” appear once, which highlights this Government’s complete disregard for rural communities like mine that are seeing their local public transport cut to the bone. The “bus back better” funding, as with other levelling-up funding, has been allocated via a bidding process in which money is apparently allocated with very little direct reference to need. There is nothing for Shropshire.

Since being elected in December, much of my time on the Floor of the House has been spent on ambulance waiting times, so I will not repeat the shocking stories of dangerous delays, but I note that a report by the all-party parliamentary group on rural health and social care and the National Centre for Rural Health and Care found stark levels of inequality between rural and urban areas when it comes to health and social care services. This resonates strongly with the emails in my inbox from concerned constituents who are struggling to access GPs, dentists and even domiciliary care in an increasingly centralised model.

There is a theme emerging for rural communities in which critical infrastructure—whether public transport, adult social care, community ambulance stations, banks, post offices, swimming pools or even driving test centres—is being shut down, centralised and removed from where it is most urgently needed. If we need anything in our market towns and villages, we are expected to get in our petrol car—there are no electric charging facilities—and drive to reach the most basic services. Those who cannot drive, for whatever reason, are being isolated in these rural islands. They are far from empowered, and I am afraid that voting on their neighbour’s extension will not compensate for waiting 17 hours for an ambulance when they need one.

The Conservatives have taken rural Britain for granted. The farming industry forms the backbone of the rural economy, producing our food, protecting our countryside and gluing rural communities together, but the Government are dicing with its future. Offering trade deals to countries with lower standards and phasing out the basic farm payment scheme before its replacement is in place would be bad enough, but there has been no response at all to the rising costs of feed, fuel and fertiliser that are leading farmers to shut up shop altogether.

When many of these critical businesses are facing the biggest challenges for a decade, the Conservatives are cutting their lifeline, taking their votes for granted and refusing to consider other options, even in the short term, to save this critical industry, but they have cut taxes for banks. That shows us all we need to know about the Conservatives’ commitment to rural Britain: cuts for farmers, shortages in healthcare, cuts to public transport and tax breaks for bankers. We have 140 pages, thousands of words and barely a mention of rural Britain and the problems facing it.

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are proudly championing rural Britain. We have tabled an amendment to the Humble Address that focuses specifically on rural issues. We are calling on the Government to protect farmers from the effect of new trade deals that would lower environmental and animal welfare standards. We are urging them to use this Queen’s Speech to reverse the closure of rural ambulance stations and to do far more to tackle the chronic shortage of GPs, dentists, consultants, nurses and the other clinical professionals that we so desperately need. We are calling on the Government to protect our rivers by preventing water companies from dumping raw sewage into them, damaging our wildlife and reducing our access.

I am proud to represent the rural constituency of North Shropshire. In my very biased view, it is the best rural constituency in Britain. The people there are caring, creative and extremely resilient, but the Conservatives are taking the good, hard-working people of rural Britain for granted. Far from levelling up, they are risking decline. I urge them to think again and to act now to prevent that from happening. Act now on the crisis in rural healthcare, of which dire ambulance response times are simply a symptom. Act now to save our farming industry and improve our food security. Act now to improve the services and transport infrastructure that are critical to growing the rural economy. And act now to give rural constituencies the fair deal they deserve.