Queen’s Speech

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, like others, I look forward to the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford, which follows this speech.

Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, I want to talk about the levelling up of rural England, its economy and its communities. In many ways, I am firing his second barrel for him, but I assure noble Lords that there was no collusion between us. It has long been a bone of contention that urban local authorities get 48% more central government support per head than their rural counterparts. That is quite a large percentage, and it means that rural council tax payers pay an average of 17% more than their urban cousins.

In health too there are inequalities. The most expensive age cohort to treat medically is from 65 to death, and while in urban England some 16% of the population is over 65, in rural England it is 24% as people like to retire to the countryside. In Devon, a very attractive place to retire to, the figure is 26%. So why is it that health funding in the county of Devon, for example, is 40% per head less than the national average and nearly 80% lower than in London?

These are old saws which I have mentioned before in this House, and I will not dwell on them. I want to talk about opportunities in the countryside that the Government can help us with at fairly minimal cost. As the right reverend Prelate mentioned, two weeks ago, our APPG for Rural Business and the Rural Powerhouse launched a report on levelling up the rural economy to enable us countryfolk to better help ourselves, and the nation, by growing our rural economy, something that must be absolutely relevant to the under- lying message inherent in the Queen’s Speech.

At the moment, the rural economy is 18% less productive than the national average, and it has been calculated that closing that gap could be worth up to £43 billion per annum and could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. I maintain that rural people are inherently enterprising. We just need a bit of focus and help from the powers that be. We actually have considerably more VATable businesses per head of population than urban England, and the one thing to underline—I make this absolutely clear—is that more than 85%, possibly 90%, of these businesses and jobs have nothing to do with agriculture, forestry or the land. There are more manufacturing businesses in the countryside than in the towns, not per head but per se, although mostly they are SMEs or micro-businesses.

This is my first request: politicians, and above all planners, must try to think of villages and market towns as potential economic hotspots. In the past they would have all had their butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, so why do planners now only think of them as dormitory communities, as places people use just to sleep? Every village needs its own workspace for its own small businesses—note that “businesses” is plural. Every village needs extra affordable housing. This is so important for businesses and balanced communities. It is something the last Government purposefully removed from the reach of locals by preventing planning authorities from making affordable homes an essential part of any new village development. That was an unnecessary disgrace. The decision was designed to help smaller builders, but it is no way to help them by forcing the less well-off out of their local housing market. That decision needs to be reversed. Villages should not just be dormitories for rich people; they should be places where all people can work, rest and play.

Then there is tax. Farms and estates have been encouraged to diversify for years, yet the moment they start a new business it has to have its own set of accounts and tax returns, which is very expensive in terms of the business owners’ time and professional fees. It would be far better if all businesses run by a farmer on a given piece of land could come under one umbrella as one rural business unit, in the same way as a wheat enterprise, for instance, comes under the same business umbrella as a dairy enterprise on a mixed farm. We need a rural business unit within the tax system.

The importance of developing the right skills in the countryside cannot be overestimated. We need help getting the right training for youngsters and making that training accessible to our rural young. Government-supported apprenticeship schemes only work in larger businesses, although I see that the Cumbria LEP—I note that its chair, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is in his place—is experimenting with a shared apprenticeship scheme involving clusters of businesses. If that works, it could be a big help.

Our youngsters also require help with transport to get to training and their first jobs. The Wheels to Work schemes, which I have mentioned in this House before and which used to be supported by central government, are brilliant. They are no longer supported. Many of your Lordships will not know what Wheels to Work schemes are about. They can best be described by asking two simple questions. First, how does a youngster in the countryside get to their first job without a set of wheels? There are no buses going from A to B at 8 am, or for that matter, going from A to C, D, E or Z. Secondly, how does a youngster get a set of wheels without a job to pay for it?

The simple answer to this Catch-22 problem is to lend them a moped. The scheme does this so that their access to training or jobs is secure. After six to nine months in work, they have to get their own set of wheels or buy their moped out of the scheme. Then they will probably never trouble social services again for the rest of their lives. The schemes cost less than the jobseeker’s allowance otherwise payable, so the Government would be saving money by supporting them. We desperately need the return of central government support for Wheels to Work schemes.

The one item that is really needed and does, I am afraid, cost money is connectivity. The Government must set a road map for post 2025 to deliver 100% high- speed broadband, and 100% mobile phone connectivity, as soon as possible; the latter is just as important as the former.

Finally, and I have been banging on about this for at least 20 years, we must strengthen the whole process of rural proofing. Rural affairs are not just for Defra. We need the processes, and above all the training in the problems of rural life, to be an inherent part of DLUHC, BEIS, the Department of Health and Social Care, DCMS, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. It is a problem that needs gripping from the very heart of government—namely, the Cabinet Office—so that it flows naturally through every department and at every level within those departments. As I say, I am not asking for much, just a bit more rural focus.