Rural Communities

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, I must first declare an interest as a farmer and countryman. It is very easy to stand up and moan about the way in which the countryside is treated by government. There is, after all, a lot to moan about. First, there is the shortage of affordable homes. Families are being torn apart by the unaffordability of housing. Secondly, public services are more expensive to deliver and, without the proper resources, sometimes fall short of urban standards. Primary education, for example, costs 24 per cent more than in the towns, due to small schools and larger distances. Health costs are also greater because you need smaller and more frequent health centres and hospitals. We also have proportionally more of the expensive over-65s living in the countryside, while refuse collection costs between 70 per cent and 90 per cent more than in urban areas, and so on. However, what creates the imbalance is that, in spite of these extra costs, central government support for local councils, LEAs and rural health authorities can be as low as half the amount given to the urban equivalents per head of population. Frankly, that is absurd.

As I said, it is easy to moan on behalf of our rural communities, especially the remoter ones, but there is a lot that is good about country living. As one might expect, we enjoy better health. Also, in spite of the extra costs, our kids appear, from the results, to get a marginally better education. Rural families and friends tend to pull together more, thereby cutting the cost of social services and making better and more sustainable communities. There is a wonderful amount of self-help in our rural population. Locals of all ages and backgrounds team up to manage and maintain their village hall, church, playground and shop. They help their Scouts and Cubs and watch out for their elderly.

Rural communities are also entrepreneurial. The fabric of our countryside depends on successful businesses—not only farming but other businesses whose wages or rents often keep farming families going. There are more manufacturing businesses in the countryside than in the towns. There are also more service businesses. There are more businesses altogether per head of population in the countryside than in the towns. The statistic that I am most proud of, even if it is a few years since I saw it, is that, of those below the poverty line in the countryside, some 22 per cent are self-employed, whereas the equivalent figure in towns is a mere 8 per cent. In other words, where there is hardship in the countryside—and this is all too easy to find—and where finding a paid job is difficult, people do not just put out their hands for welfare but try to make ends meet through their own efforts.

Having pointed out that rural communities have a lot to moan about but on the whole do not moan, I realise that in these economically difficult times it is unlikely that government funding for our big problems will materialise. Rural communities are great at surviving—and the more remote they are, the better they are at it. However, one or two things could be done that do not involve spending much money. We could start with the fabric of our countryside.

Because of farmers’ vital management of the countryside, the UK should argue in the EU for all stewardship payments to come under Pillar 1. This would mean a reduction in the normal single farm payment but, rather than just receiving handouts, most farmers would prefer the state to reward them for doing something. At the moment, stewardship payments come from Pillar 2, where there is little money to go around. Pillar 1 would make such payments more widespread and certain. The CLA proposes that in this way our designated less favoured areas—mostly our uplands and more remote countryside—could become environmentally favoured areas, from which the whole nation could benefit.

As for other businesses, and indeed affordable housing, it is often a matter of planning rather than of funding. Every village should have its own workspace and its own affordable housing. Perhaps the time has come when local parishes should be able to demand the provision of space for such facilities from their local planning authority and to use the planning system to enable that development to take place. Rural planning should not be about saying no; it should be about facilitating local communities to plan their own future. If that means converting and using redundant farm buildings, so much the better.

The other essential feature for rural businesses and society is a fast broadband connection. I am afraid that this comes with a price tag, but it is cheaper than more roads, more public transport and more daily delivery of a variety of public and commercial services. If rural citizens can easily access all services through a modern IT network and get the training to do so, many rural disadvantages could evaporate. This would be a clear case of spend now to save later.

My final point concerns rural proofing, a subject mentioned by the two previous speakers. There is no doubt that, if you wish to improve the quality of life in the countryside, it is departments other than Defra that matter. It is vital that all civil servants understand the problems of the countryside: the distances and difficulties of travel and the deprivation that exists in what most people—certainly most civil servants—think of as a chocolate-box existence. Apart from the obvious problems of delivery of health and education, can BIS, for example, deliver an efficient advisory service to the large number of businesses that exist in remoter Britain? Can the DWP provide rural careers advice, having reduced the number of rural jobcentres by 56 per cent in the past decade? Does the DCMS realise that school sports and drama usually happen after the departure of the school bus, thus making these facilities available only to families whose car is not monopolised by the breadwinner? More flippantly, has the Ministry of Justice worked out how witnesses and even felons can get to the more and more distant courts system without stealing a car?

Getting these departments to think about their remote and badly served rural customers in an understanding way is vital, particularly now that further cuts are being made. Having tried to do the job of rural proofing, I am acutely aware that you need to be well informed, confident, tough, provocative, independent and sometimes even threatening. I am also aware that none of those adjectives is easily applied to Defra staff. So how, with the imminent demise of the CRC, do the Government propose that this essential rural-proofing crusade will continue? Perhaps we should have a rural-proofing committee in this House. I am sure that we could stir up a few departments.

In conclusion, in a period of cuts the countryside will survive. Life is not perfect and deprivation will become more widespread, but most people will get on with it, rally round and help one another. However, the Government have to show that they care, which nowadays involves every department having an understanding of the difficulties of remote rural living and positively promoting agendas to overcome them.