Fuel Prices
Debate between Rory Stewart and Simon Hart(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I join so many colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this fantastic debate. It is such a great example of how the Back-Bench system should operate. On that note, I will try to keep my speech as short as possible, limiting it to less than two minutes in order to let others speak.
I wish to make one very simple point on behalf of Cumbria: rural isolation is not just a question of sparse population; it is also about the terrible hollowing out of rural areas over the past 15 years. When I look out of my window at home, I see the disappearance of a school, a shop and a police station. In the past 15 years, we have lost 2,200 schools, 550 clinics and 150 police stations—that is across the nation, not across Cumbria.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
My hon. Friend will also be aware that 600 filling stations are closing every year, making the distance that rural inhabitants must travel to fill up their car even more demanding.
Rory Stewart
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The loss of pumps is an incredibly important issue, as is the loss of all the other services that are going such as pubs and shops. Currently, my neighbour, who has Parkinson’s disease, has to travel for two and a half hours to see a neurologist in Newcastle, and our schoolchildren are travelling further and further. There are things we can do to deal effectively with these problems, including with broadband and smart metering. It is a real disgrace that we have not sorted out smart metering. There is much better technology available. However, I should like to make a small plea for an extension, as rapidly as possible, of the 5p rebate that is currently offered in the highlands and islands to other sparsely populated areas of Britain.
Rural Broadband
Debate between Rory Stewart and Simon Hart(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
That is a fantastic point. Of course, the complexity of what the Government are dealing with is astonishing. It is not just topography or technology; it includes cost, legal issues such as European state aid regulations, and issues such as the spectrum auction, which I hope to come on to briefly.
May I make a little progress for another minute and a half before I take any more interventions? This project owes an enormous amount to ministerial leadership—not just that of the Minister, but of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—and has seen enormous progress to date. However, it is a revolution in methodology and procurement. People are having to push boundaries on procurement and methodology that would have been unimaginable 11 months previously. People are having to be much more flexible. Instead of going for big, framework, county council solutions, they are having to respond, often parish by parish, to very different technological solutions within a single area of 100 square miles. That involves risk. It involves generous investment by the Government. It involves piloting measures.
What does this mean? For the new policy, it means three lessons. We need to share the lessons from all the pilots much more effectively around the country. I hope that this is the beginning of a series of Westminster Hall debates—if anyone has the patience—in which we can take the lessons further. We need to look much more seriously at finance. Of course, there is great inspiration from the United States in the 1920s and ’30s, when a dedicated bank was set up for communities to electrify rural areas. The green investment bank is a good beginning for our Government in that direction. The big society bank is another good beginning. I would like to see finance facilities available specifically for parishes and communities to be able to move ahead with their own broadband.
The final issue is the rural spectrum auction. We talk a lot about broadband. We must think about mobile coverage. An Ofcom consultation is taking place at the moment. Ofcom is pushing only for 95% coverage for this spectrum. We need to shove it up from that, because 95% coverage will mean that most of the areas represented in this Chamber will not be covered. On those grounds, I will take my second intervention.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that now is an excellent time to urge the Minister to address the twin problems of broadband and mobile phone coverage, not one or the other and not even sequentially, because in rural areas it would be impossible to deliver on the big society pledge without both those issues being addressed?