Backing Business to Create Economic Growth

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I wish to speak about rural regeneration and the need to back business and create economic growth in rural areas. Around a fifth of the British population live in rural areas, which have great untapped potential, but we do not see the infrastructure in those areas to allow them to reach that potential and provide the economic growth we need.

To illustrate the point, I have picked five areas, the first of which is digital connectivity. The previous Government’s Project Gigabit seemed like a really good idea: to roll out fibre broadband across rural areas, in places where it would otherwise not have been commercial, and connect businesses and homes so that people could do the things that they need to online—whether that is work from home, start a new business or connect their existing business.

In Shropshire, the contract was awarded to a company called Freedom Fibre, which was going to roll out fibre broadband to 12,000 properties but stalled at 3,500 after it could not get the funding it needed to connect the rest. The remaining properties will now be connected by Openreach, but not until 2030. That matters in rural places where, for instance, someone with a farm might allow other businesses to run from redundant buildings that are past their sell-by date and no good for keeping animals. However, those places do not have fibre broadband, which means they are not suitable places for start-up businesses to operate from. The absence of broadband is really beginning to hold us back.

It is the same story with mobile coverage. Ofcom reports that 1.45% of postcodes do not have “good” voice capability. Everyone who lives in North Shropshire knows that is complete rubbish, because it is impossible to make a phone call from lots and lots of places, including while driving down the A5. Prees Green is a particular blackspot where I tend to get cut off when speaking to my husband on my way home on a Wednesday night. There are all sorts of places where it really is impossible to make a phone call, and that is holding businesses back.

In fact, the River Severn Partnership found that 15.33% of postcodes are without good coverage, and the Rural Services Network says that 65% of rural residents across the country experience unreliable mobile signal. That really matters to people trying to run a business, particularly if they are on the road with that business or trying to work from home. It is holding us back. We need the Government to put in place a regulatory environment for the businesses that connect us digitally to ensure that rural places get the service they need. At the moment, they are being held back by the lack of availability.

I will give the House an example. I spoke to a business owner last week—they were actually talking to me about cash and getting to the bank, which I will come to later—who cannot accept payment cards at their premises because they are without a decent signal and any network. They have to give their bank details to their customers, who then go home and make a bank transfer—hopefully. That business is taking on all that risk because it cannot operate a simple swipe-and-pay system. The lack of digital connectivity has that kind of impact on businesses in my area.

It also really affects how farmers—there are over 1,000 farms in North Shropshire—do their business. Theirs are often the worst-connected properties, but farmers need to be online to deal with the regulatory environment within which they operate, and they might need to use GPS to work their farm machinery. All that is a problem if the digital connectivity is poor.

[Gregory Stafford]

The stories the hon. Lady is telling about the poor connectivity in her constituency echo what I experience in mine, where we have some of the worst full-fibre broadband certainly in the south-east, and potentially in the country, despite being only an hour away from London. I recently surveyed my constituents about mobile coverage and, contrary to popular opinion, more than two thirds were willing to have more masts in their area because of the change with people working from home and in how people do business. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to look forward and ensure that we have connectivity in our areas, rather than looking back to a time when people were operating very differently?

[Helen Morgan]

I agree entirely. I question the perception that people’s objection to masts is holding us back. In Shropshire, passive infrastructure masts have planning permission and are ready to go; what cannot be achieved is a mobile phone operator willing to put its equipment on those masts. We need to work with mobile network operators to get the connectivity we need.

I will move on to public transport. Shropshire has lost 63% of its bus miles since 2015, compared with 19% on average across England. Places like Woore, a village of around 1,000 people in my constituency, have no bus service at all; others, like Trefonen, have one bus a day. Weston Rhyn residents do have a bus service, but at the moment it just does not turn up because of a road diversion. This is really holding people back.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

Like me, my hon. Friend represents a very rural constituency, albeit not quite as beautiful as Tiverton and Minehead. I completely concur with her points about rural transport: it is an absolute blocker for economic development, education and so many other things. Does she agree that growth is not conjured by debate but built by political will? My constituents and businesses need a functioning road from Watchet to Blue Anchor, a rebuilt school in Tiverton and a Government who foster the conditions for enterprise to flourish. To date, the political will has been lacking.

[Helen Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention; it speaks to the point that rural areas have been looked past by the current Government and the previous Government. They have been neglected for many, many years, and if we are to unleash the potential of those rural areas, we need the political will to invest in them.

Shropshire has lost more bus service miles than pretty much anywhere else in the country, but in the funding round in early 2025, Shropshire had the 53rd lowest of 73 allocations, despite being one of the worst-served counties in the country. Local businesses and the local jobcentre tell me that not being able to get staff to their businesses is the biggest problem they face. They struggle to recruit skilled labour and to get people to them because there is very poor public transport. If a person in Shropshire cannot afford to run a car, they are pretty much stranded where they are. If that person is a young person looking for their first job or looking to learn the skills needed to work, they will probably struggle to get work because of the lack of public transport.

Trains are a real problem too. Accessibility at Whitchurch station has been overlooked, as has the connection between Oswestry and Gobowen. Those trains could be transformational for our area.

I welcome the Government’s review of in-person banking services that was announced last week. There is only one town with a bank in my constituency. We need to ensure that everybody can access the services they need. A business owner should not be required to drive many miles simply to change a signatory. I have had a lot of feedback from businesses in my constituency saying that banking services are critical.

Council funding is really important, and councils are critical for economic development. Shropshire does not have Pride in Place funding. It has lost the local growth funding, and it has not been given shared prosperity funding now that it has been phased out. That really impacts our ability to attract people into tourism and to regenerate the area. I would also say that education funding is part of that picture, because skills are essential. In areas where there are low outcomes for children, having very low input into their schools is problematic.

Finally, I want to talk about farming. The family farm tax has held back over 1,068 farms in Shropshire. Milk prices are a real problem. Many of our dairy farmers are producing at lower than cost, and fertiliser and diesel prices are soaring because of the war in Iran, causing a huge crisis of confidence in the farming industry. I look forward to hearing how the Government are going to generate confidence in our farming industry so that our rural economies can thrive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend.

The rate that Britain is now paying is higher than at any time over the last 20 years—in fact, it is the highest rate since the last time Labour was in office. Britain’s finances are in a precarious position precisely because Labour is doing what it always does: spending other people’s money like there is no tomorrow.

The Government announced a holiday tax in the King’s Speech. This will enable councils to tax holidays taken in this country even more than at present. Most people who take their holiday in Britain are British. They already pay VAT at 20% on their holidays, and Labour wants to tax them further. This will hit local businesses in Burnham-on-Sea, Berrow and Brean in my constituency. Many families who holiday in Somerset are not wealthy. A tax of £2.50 per person per night will take £70 a week away from a family of four. That is money taken out of their pocket that they cannot spend with local businesses.

It has been interesting to watch Liberal Democrats in Somerset squirming over their plans for a holiday tax. While their colleagues in Bristol and Bath have welcomed the tax, calling its introduction a victory for Liberal Democrats, those in Somerset do not quite know what to say. No doubt they will make their position clear before next year’s local elections.

[Helen Morgan]

I wonder whether it has occurred to the hon. Gentleman that the Liberal Democrats’ whole point is that local government should be able to decide on its own policies, because they will be appropriate in some cases and not in others.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

And I would like to know from the Liberal Democrats in Somerset whether they think it appropriate to take money from my constituents in Berrow, Brean and Burnham-on-Sea and spend it in Taunton and Yeovil. For some reason, they seem reluctant to say.

The King’s Speech confirmed the Government’s plans to curtail our constituents’ right to a jury trial. It is a tragedy that this Government are trampling on our ancient rights and liberties. They claim that it is because of the backlog of cases in the Crown courts, but that backlog was not caused by jury trials, and it will not be reduced by curtailing the right to a jury trial. Labour Ministers have failed to provide any evidence that this will increase court efficiency. It will not bring swifter justice, but it will undermine confidence in our whole justice system. It is a reform without any rational justification. I believe that the Government are wrong, and must reverse their course.

My constituents want secure borders, affordable energy, safer streets, economic growth and opportunities for their children, and that is why the Conservatives are setting out our alternative King’s Speech. At a time of international instability, the Government should be cutting welfare spending in order to spend more on defence, but instead we are stuck with a feeble Government who threaten both our economic and national security.