Rural Communities

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend and county neighbour. What Labour does not seem to understand is that rural areas are not against building more homes and infrastructure. They just want them in the right places, and for them to go with the grain of the community, not against it. At least the Prime Minister is being consistent in this one instance. In the election campaign, he said that he was happy to make enemies of the people who oppose his plans. Well, that is a rare example of an election promise that he has kept. Just as Ministers do not understand business because none of them has ever run one, they do not understand the quintessential quality of rural life—that sense of belonging, of being part of a community. It is about people coming together, be it at the parish church, the local riding stables or our local pubs.

Rural sports, which were mentioned, are an example. They are a key part of the rural way of life for participants and non-participants alike. They are responsible for 26,000 full-time equivalent jobs, and perform vital conservation work across the countryside. Wander down a rural high street and you will see shops selling clothing and equipment for rural sports, as well as farriers, gun makers and saddlers, and there are others dotted around the countryside. A careless policy on rural sports will have wide-reaching impacts across our rural communities.

We rightly have some of the strongest gun laws in the world. The intent to strengthen those safeguards further is understandable, but we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community on their serious concerns that current proposals will have grave and unintended consequences, including causing further delays in vital medical assessments for licence holders.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Is the shadow Secretary of State aware of the great concern in Shropshire among the rural community, in particular farmers, that the Government are conflating lethal firearms with shotguns? Of course, shotguns should be controlled, but they are already strictly controlled, and they are a vital part of rural life, especially for farmers controlling vermin, or those undertaking other rural pursuits. I appeal, through the shadow Secretary of State, to the Minister to look again and disregard the consultation. The changes have not been called for and are unnecessary.

[Victoria Atkins]

As I say, we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community. We all understand the intent behind the proposals, but the Government have to get them right, because they could have grave ramifications.

Trail hunting, which we will hear about this afternoon, is long-established, and was specifically permitted by the previous Labour Government under the Hunting Act 2004 as a humane alternative to fox hunting. It is rightly a criminal offence to break the terms of the Hunting Act, and any such criminal offences should be enforced rigorously. Indeed, there have been 416 convictions in the past 15 years. Labour MPs need to be able to say why they propose imposing a blanket ban instead of tackling those who actually break the law. If there is to be intellectual consistency, do they advocate banning driving, on the basis that some people speed? Of course not. There should be effective enforcement of the criminal law brought in by their predecessor Labour Government. I wish, for example, that the Government would prioritise stopping the egregious crime of hare coursing, which we suffer from very badly in Lincolnshire, or organised rural crime or fly-tipping—all terrible crimes that seem to be increasing. Under this Government, sadly, police numbers are falling, including in rural areas. Rather than tackle the issues of policing and enforcement, the Government want to impose a blanket ban. Let us be clear-eyed as to why they are doing this: their Prime Minister is weak, his Cabinet is circling and his Back Benchers are revolting. [Laughter.] The Government need to throw them some red meat, so they are coming after lawful rural sports.

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[Dame Angela Eagle]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard).

[Mark Pritchard]

It is humid in here. I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She is talking about important subjects for all our communities, including infrastructure, SMEs and transport. We can differ on who is to be praised or not. On the Government’s legislative priorities—many of these things require legislation or have already had legislative time spent on them—why are the Government going to spend so much time on banning trail hunting? Is she aware that, if that goes through, in Shropshire alone we will likely see the death of at least 300 hounds? That will impact on many rural SMEs.

As the Minister has been in the House a very long time, she will know that I have had at least three animal welfare Bills in the House—[Interruption.] That was long before the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) even set foot in the Chamber. My record on animal welfare is long and established. Today, I stand up for all the people in the hunts who do not want to destroy all those dogs as well as jobs.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

First, I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman’s record on animal welfare; I think everyone across the House respects it. Secondly, I was in the House when we voted to ban hunting in the first place. I was actually in the Chamber when it was invaded by hunt protesters, who did not show much attention to the law when they ran into this place—they were so surprised that they had arrived here that they did not quite know what to do. I therefore take no lessons on any of that.

The ban on trail hunting was in our manifesto, and we are consulting on how to put it into effect. I certainly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take part in that consultation.

[Mark Pritchard]

I will vote against it!

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman may vote any way he likes, but I hope that he will take part in the consultation so that we can have a proper debate about these things.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to close this debate. I have to say that even in the deep, bleak midwinter, I do not recognise the gloomy, barren landscape that Conservative Members have been describing. They describe a litany of disasters. If only they had been in government for the last 14 years and been able to do something about them. As I go round our countryside, I see a quite different picture; I see millions of people in rural communities who were taken for granted and underserved by the Conservatives. That is why they kicked the party out at the last general election. We Labour Members are laser-focused on encouraging growth, and Labour is now the party of the countryside. The Conservatives should stop talking the country down and get behind our drive for growth.

Let us look at the inheritance that the Conservatives left local communities: broken public services, boarded-up post offices, crumbling schools and sky-high NHS waiting lists. They have learned no lessons, offered no apologies and shown no contrition, and that is why they were booted out of government. They had a Liz Truss mini-Budget that crashed the economy, sending mortgages, rents and bills soaring. And who was the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when food inflation hit 19%? It was the shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

[Mark Pritchard]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mary Creagh]

I am not giving way, because I have only eight minutes to respond to the debate.

The Conservatives’ former Prime Minister explicitly said that there was a deliberate policy of taking money away from deprived inner-city areas and giving it to rural areas. This Government are cleaning up the mess that they made, and we have stabilised the economy.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) is not in his place, because I cycled the 25 miles there from the New Forest during the covid lockdowns. He talked a lot about the 61 bus, but he did not mention anything about the rail fare freeze. His constituents will enjoy the freezing of rail fares, as well as the freezing of prescription charges, £150 off energy bills and the driving up of wages. What did the Conservatives do on each of those issues to help people in rural communities? They voted against each and every one of those measures. They left the health service on its knees, our schools were crumbling and they crashed the economy. We have done more in 18 months than they achieved in 14 miserable years, including delivering cheaper mortgages and new rights for workers, and lifting half a million people out of poverty.

I want to come back to bus routes, because under the Conservatives and Lib Dems, bus routes in England declined by 50% after 2010. Some 8,000 services were slashed on their watch. We have taken immediate action through the Bus Services Act, which includes provision to support the socially necessary bus services that are so important in rural areas. I am grateful to have the bus Minister sitting next to me, and we have maintained the national £3 bus fare cap. [Interruption.] Members are shouting from a sedentary position, but there was no cap under the Conservative Government.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) about the problems of rural crime. During the 14 years of Conservative Government the recorded crime rate in rural areas of England and Wales increased by 32%. Our rural communities paid the price for the Tories being asleep on the job, and the 20,000 police officers that they and the Liberal Democrats cut in 2010. We are ensuring that rural communities will be better protected from the scourge of rural crime, such as equipment theft, livestock theft and hare coursing, which we know devastate communities, farming and wildlife. That is why we have collaborated with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office to deliver a renewed rural and wildlife crime strategy, which was published last November.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) asked about waste crime, and I have visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) to see the fly-tipping there. We know that waste crime blights our rural communities and undermines legitimate businesses. The last Government let waste gangs and organised crime groups run riot, with incidents rising by 20% in their last five years, but we have announced what are we going to do.

Independent Water Commission

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are currently going through a dry spell and seeing hosepipe bans in many parts of the country, yet in the winter it rained very heavily. The reason we have hosepipe bans is that we do not have the reservoirs to catch the rain when it falls and then use it in drier periods, which is because we have not built a new reservoir for 30 years. That changes now: these plans include the intention to build nine new reservoirs. To speed up the planning process, I as the Secretary of State am taking control of consents for reservoirs, so that they can be approved much faster and go ahead to provide the country with the clean drinking water we need.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The Environment Agency estimates that there are 4 million regular and occasional anglers throughout the United Kingdom, with 1.2 million getting fishing licences last year. Angling across the country is worth about £3 billion to the economy and it is the favourite pastime in this country, as the Secretary of State will know. Will he give an undertaking to all the anglers throughout this country that they will be fully engaged by the new regulator?

[Steve Reed]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Anglers are quite rightly furious about the level of pollution, which is destroying fish and other life in our rivers, but also about the impact of abstractions, particularly from chalk streams, so the new regulator will be engaging with them. Sir Jon has proposed new mechanisms for volunteers and campaigners to engage with the system that were not available previously. We will consult on those in the autumn, and move ahead with legislation following that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The previous Government cut resources for regulation in half, and that is one of the ways water companies were able to get away with so much pollution. We have changed the law to allow regulators to recover prosecution costs so that they can carry out further prosecutions and stop those who have been polluting our waterways.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Can I make an appeal to the Secretary of State, and indeed his whole Front Bench, not to make farmers a scapegoat in any water reforms? Clearly, where farming and farmers are involved in bad practice, they should be penalised, but social industrialists, other employers, and indeed those in the public sector, might also pollute rivers. Water is a critical part of the food supply chain and agriculture. Farmers look after the environment on all our behalf—in the right way most of the time. My appeal to the Secretary of State is to please get the National Farmers’ Union and farmers involved and not let them become scapegoats.

[Steve Reed]

I of course agree with the right hon. Member. We are supporting farmers, many of whom were affected by very severe flooding recently, with the farming recovery fund. I am engaging constantly, and will be again today, with the National Farmers’ Union about those issues and many others.

Foot and Mouth Disease

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

We constantly keep under review the resources that are available to enable us to tackle all these issues. On the basis of a number of questions today, I shall be happy to visit Weybridge at the earliest opportunity.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Unfortunately, as the Minister will know, foot and mouth disease looms large in the memories of many Shropshire farmers. Talking of visits—this is a genuine point—I wonder whether the Minister, and indeed the Secretary of State, would consider visiting Harper Adams University in my constituency, which, as he will also know, is the top agricultural university in Europe. I mention that because it has veterinary experts with specific expertise in this disease and others.

As we heard from the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson), more than 6 million pigs, cattle and sheep were lost in 2001 and 2007. The Minister mentioned biodiversity. Can he update the House on illegal meat imports and checks at the border, and the implementation of the border target operating model?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his invitation; I shall add him to my list. The border checks involve a complicated set of issues, but one of the Brexit benefits, if you like, is the existence of those checks, and I am satisfied that they are providing a level of security that should give people confidence. As I said in an earlier answer, we have strengthened the controls on personal imports. It is always a challenge to protect any area, but we are in a better position than colleagues in mainland Europe.

Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Let me make a few housekeeping points. We will have an informal three-minute limit, but if colleagues intervene a lot and we are running out of time, I may have to make a formal ruling from the Chair, which will mean that any interventions add a minute to the time of the Member who is speaking.

Can I just say that when colleagues attend debates in this Chamber, or any other debate, they really should wait for the end of at least the first speech, having intervened, before leaving? The person who left the Chamber is not here to hear that ruling, but I offer it as a gentle reminder for other colleagues. Also, when Members make a speech, they should remain in the Chamber until they have heard two other speakers before leaving.

My final observation from this debate is that if colleagues come in—[Interruption.] Order. Forgive me, but the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Mr Amos) might want to hear this. If an hon. Member comes in halfway through the opening speech, they should not expect to intervene, having not heard at least the introduction and some of the preamble to the substantive points.

I hope that is helpful. I share it from a point of weakness, having myself made all of those mistakes and many more over many years. We will have an informal limit of three minutes to start. I call Grahame Morris.

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[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

As the Opposition Front Benchers will know, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson and shadow Minister will get five minutes each and the Minister will get 10 minutes. The debate is due to finish at 4 pm; we were going to put a time limit on speeches, but some Members have left this debate early and some did not speak as long as expected. If Members who have not spoken want to make a brief intervention, you can do so over the next few minutes, but I ask you to please be brief. I think that is fair, given that I hinted at a voluntary time limit and that the debate has been well attended.

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[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the Minister, I should say that I allowed the Front Benchers to speak a little longer given that we have some time. If the Minister wishes to take interventions, she can, although she does not have to. I remind her that if she so chooses she can give time at the end—just a couple of minutes—to the mover of the motion Tim Farron.

Before I call the Minister, I hope that the hon. Member for Hexham will forgive my mentioning that it is a procedure of the House—a courtesy—to be in the whole debate and not come in after 65 minutes of a 90-minute debate and then make an intervention. It is not really the way to add to a debate or get the most out of it. I am sure he will take note of that. I call the Minister.

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[Tim Farron]

Mr Pritchard, she’s a good ‘un. I thank the Minister very much indeed; I appreciate that.

Finally, I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate, but I also thank you, Mr Pritchard. That might sound a bit smarmy, but you and I go back a long way. I wish that when I first started here I had a Chair of Westminster Hall debates who talked us through the process as well as you have today. I am very grateful to you, and indeed to everybody else who has been here for this debate.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

You will definitely be called first in the next debate, that’s for sure. [Laughter.] You have been here a long time; you know how to work the system. So, there we are. No—there is no system to work; we are neutral in the Chair. But thank you for your kind comments.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the regulation and financial stability of water companies.