Rural Communities

Lord de Clifford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord de Clifford (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on securing a debate in the Chamber on this important subject. I remind your Lordships of my interests as listed in the register: I live in a rural area and run an SME, a veterinary practice, in a rural town in Wiltshire. I express my belated congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, on her ministerial appointment and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, on his maiden speech—I will not attempt to pronounce the name of his home village.

In the veterinary business I run, a challenge has arisen in the past six months. For our ambulatory vets, there has been a deterioration in mobile coverage for voice calls, text messages and data services. This is hampering the ability to communicate, to increase business efficiency and to receive emergency messages. It also raises safety issues, as many of my vets are lone workers who work throughout the day and night.

The probable cause of this decline has been the switch-off by the mobile network providers of the 3G network. The 3G network had significantly more range from telecom masts of up to six miles, whereas the higher-speed 4G and 5G spectrums have ranges of three to four miles, and as little as two miles for 5G. Can the Minister say whether Ofcom could review mobile phone coverage, especially in rural areas, and what impact this is having on rural communities?

Internet connection is, as mentioned by many of your Lordships, a vital part for businesses and homes, especially with the recent trend in encouraging us all to use more data services. This is reflected today in the closure of bank services and all of us being forced to use online services for our daily banking. The continued need for good broadband connectivity is essential for rural communities to continue to prosper, as with similar services in urban areas. We welcome the Government’s manifesto promise to

“make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage”.

Rural areas need more government support to ensure that most rural towns and villages get gigabit services at an affordable cost as the number of providers is limited due to high installation costs, thereby reducing competition and opportunity for price competition.

Farming businesses are at the heart of the rural business community and support many secondary businesses such as the veterinary business I work in. Over the past year, dairy farmers in particular have found it hard to invest and make profits due to the low milk price. This has been reflected in our business in that some farmers are using only veterinary services that maintain herd health and other essential veterinary services.

The full range of skills and value that veterinary surgeons can bring to a farming business for the long term cannot be implemented as margins are so tight for farmers. They do not have the confidence to invest in such things as herd health planning for long-term productivity gains, and in the time and infrastructure projects needed to make farms more profitable and to adapt to the current and new challenges from the environment and changing weather patterns.

I am sure that the Minister is well informed on the NFU’s manifesto for certainty regarding agriculture support. It is not just about financial support but about safeguarding our food security and our farming environment. The protection of biosecurity of our national plants, herds and flocks is also particularly important, as we debated earlier this year. To continue to improve biosecurity in the UK, I ask the Minister what additional plans there are to further improve border surveillance and checks to protect the country from illegal imports of disease-infected meat products and plants.

I am sure this Government will support ensuring we have a level playing field with regard to animal health standards and will look to take on the challenge to ensure that all imported animals related to food are reared to the same animal health standards as farmers in the UK must adhere to. This is not only to create a level playing field for our farmers to trade in but, more importantly, to protect animals throughout the world so that they can have the same living conditions as those farmed in the UK.

Affordable housing is essential in rural villages. This is reflected across the employees that I work with in our business. Very few of our low-paid employees live in the market town of Malmesbury in Wiltshire. The majority commute using their cars, as public transport does not fit their working patterns, or is extremely slow. Can the Minister say what the Government have planned with regard to trying to address, again, the challenging issue of affordable housing in rural areas? Could the Minister also pass a message to the Treasury that increasing fuel duty has a disproportionate effect on rural communities and the low paid, as they need their cars to commute to work.

As a result of the high cost of living, there is a lack of childcare places for young parents to enable them to return to work to further their own prospects, and to further enhance rural communities. I have recently heard of a new parent having to put their child’s name down for a place at a nursery before their child is even born to ensure that they have a place when they return to work at the end of maternity leave. So any additional support from the Government for the childcare sector in the rural community across the nation would be welcome.