Employment: Rural Employment

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord a specific answer on that, but I will try to give him an answer that is of interest to the south-west of England. The South-West Skills Programme offers vocational and technical training opportunities for farmers, foresters and agrifeed businesses. The programme has provided training for a total of 9,497 trainees.

[Lord Vinson]

My Lords, for many years I was lucky enough to be chairman of the Rural Development Commission. One key policy that we recognised was the cost of getting to work. Today the Chancellor, by reducing, or rather holding, fuel duty, has enabled many more rural people to be able to afford to run a car. That is a key component of rural employment, and I congratulate him.

[Lord De Mauley]

Yes, my Lords. I will give more examples of how the Autumn Statement will benefit rural growth. We will extend small business rates relief for a further 12 months from 1 April 2013, benefiting more than 500,000 small businesses. We will devolve a greater proportion of growth-related spending to local areas from April 2015. We will provide further support to businesses and motorists, which my noble friend referred to, by cancelling the fuel duty increase that was planned for 1 January 2013, and we will defer the 2013-14 increase to 1 September 2013. We will ensure that businesses—particularly small businesses—can access finance and support.