Rural Communities: Government Support

Sarah Dyke Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government support for rural communities.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. This is the first debate that I have held. I feel it is important to highlight the challenges facing many of our rural communities. The Government must recognise the financial support needed, especially for local authorities to deliver essential frontline services.

To begin, I will explain the challenges that affect rural communities, and how their rurality provides specific complications that are often missed or ignored by central Government. People who live in rural areas face added living costs known as the rural premium. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that they typically need to spend around 10% to 20% more on everyday essentials than their urban counterparts. The rural economy is 19% less productive per worker than the national average, which is reported to cost the UK economy £43 billion per year. Employers face difficulties recruiting staff as rural areas generally have poorer public transport connections, resulting in employees relying on private vehicles and facing higher fuel expenditure.

The Government recognised the need to assist rural areas with the cost of travel and introduced the rural fuel duty relief in 2001, and it was extended again in 2015. However, it extends only to the most remote parts of the UK. I urge the Government to listen to Liberal Democrat calls for the scheme to be extended to cover most rural areas in the UK, including Somerset.

Fifty-three thousand people live within 10 km of Langport and Somerton, yet they are without access to a train station. Travellers have to drive 24 km to Taunton or 25km to Castle Cary. For those without access to private transport, the travel time by bus between Langport and Taunton is 51 minutes, and for Somerton it is 62 minutes. There is no direct connection to the rail by bus between Langport and Somerton and Castle Cary, with public transport requiring an interchange. The shortest journey time is therefore around one hour and 17 minutes. Bus routes in my constituency are also under threat, with four routes currently without guaranteed long-term funding.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing her first Westminster Hall debate. She is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that bus services are important not only for getting people to train stations but for preventing social isolation and getting people to school and to the doctors and so on?

[Sarah Dyke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that rural isolation is a very important matter.

I received a phone call today from a constituent who cannot get to their medical appointments. The 58 bus service is currently under threat, and if that closes they will not be able to move around the constituency and access the vital services they need. It is clear that sparse public transport is a constant constraint to regeneration of the local economy.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. She is doing a wonderful job raising many of the issues that I also see in Bosworth, which is an 85% rural community. She has hit on the issue of sparsity and its impact on the delivery of services that need to be able to reach people, such as care workers. Does she agree that the Government should consider changing the local authority funding formula such that it takes sparsity into account? That would make a real difference, because it is a real problem when it comes to hidden rural poverty.

[Sarah Dyke]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is very important for very rural areas such as Somerset, so I thank him for that.

Moving on to broadband, poor levels of rural connectivity and broadband impact rural economies, limiting growth and inhibiting people’s lives. New research by Vodafone UK revealed the extent of the rural digital divide across the UK. Somerton and Frome is in the bottom 6% of constituencies for mobile coverage, and nearly a quarter of the constituency is in a total 5G notspot. This has a significant impact on attracting businesses to the area, with rural businesses already struggling with online sales, services and accepting credit card payments.

For these reasons, many rural businesses rely on cash, meaning that access to cash is even more important in rural areas. Three banks have closed in Somerton and Frome in the last year alone, and the sharp drop in Government services through post offices has exacerbated the problem of post offices closing. Since 2010, Government services through post offices have declined by over 75%, as provision has been withdrawn. That affects the profitability of post offices and withdraws a valuable front-facing public asset from rural communities.

While the Government may brag about bringing inflation down to 4.6%, food inflation remains very high, at around 10%. The impact of food inflation can hit rural communities harder than their urban counterparts. Research by Which? found that people who rely on small local supermarket stores will almost never be able to buy essential budget-line items. Those types of stores are more prevalent in rural communities, with access to larger supermarkets more likely to be close to the urban centres.

Data from the Association of Convenience Stores shows that rural consumer visits to local convenience stores dropped from 3.4 times a week in 2018 to 2.5 times in 2022, suggesting that people are feeling the effects of food inflation acutely, which will hurt these convenience stores. When local convenience stores fail, they leave behind an empty space, which is often unfilled, depriving the community of vital provisions and forcing people to travel further for goods. Over the last two years, food prices have risen by more than a quarter. Examples of food prices now compared with 12 months ago reveal the extent to which people are struggling. In Tesco 12 months ago, 10 large eggs were sold at £2.70; now, they cost £3.85. The cost is 42% higher in just one year.

To tackle food prices and ensure food security, the Government need to provide support to those who grow our food. We need sustainable food production here at home. The common agricultural policy reform was welcomed, but the Government have botched that, leaving many farmers on the brink. The farming budget for England has not increased in line with inflation, despite the cost of farmers’ inputs and energy costs increasing significantly. Also, the latest figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that the average farm in England is £5,000 down this year because of departmental underspend.

Before the autumn statement, the National Farmers Union president was clear that British farming needs more investment. That is something that I, as someone from a farming family, fully agree with. It is also something that my party fully agrees with. The Liberal Democrats want to boost the farming budget by £1 billion to provide farmers with the relief that they so desperately need, alongside giving food producers more energy support.

Our rural communities have an intrinsic relationship with farming; 91% of land in Somerton and Frome is agricultural. Farming and its supply chain are major employers throughout rural communities, but they are struggling to get the workers that they need, which points to the major workforce problems in the sector. A report last year by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that covid and Brexit had had a huge impact on the sector. A lack of workers severely affects the productivity of our farms, resulting in higher food prices. The Liberal Democrats want to act on that by ensuring that we provide visas for agricultural workers and allow our farms to produce the food that they so desperately want to produce.

Farms have also been heavily affected by increases in energy costs. The Government reduced energy support for farms drastically—by 85%—in replacing the energy bill relief scheme with the energy bills discount scheme, and with farms not being classified as an energy and trade-intensive industry, farmers have been denied extra support, despite the industry being highly energy intensive.

The high costs of energy have also massively impacted domestic consumers. The higher likelihood of rural communities not having a direct relationship with their energy supplier has posed different difficulties for rural consumers from those faced by their urban counterparts. A quarter of homes in Somerton and Frome are off the gas grid and rely on alternative sources of fuel. Between 2021 and 2023, heating oil prices rose by 77% and the price of liquid gas doubled. The energy price guarantee introduced by the Government to cap people’s energy costs did not cover off-grid homes. They were forced to wait for the Government’s alternative fuels payment. It was initially £100, but after extensive lobbying, including by some of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, the Government increased that to £200. However, it was not rolled out for those completely off grid until March 2023. Those who are off grid are still suffering high fuel costs, with liquified petroleum gas twice the price it was two years ago. I believe that the Government need to introduce a cap on domestic heating oil to support rural areas.

The rural premium applied in rural areas needs to be recognised by the Government, and support needs to be in place to alleviate the current high cost of living. The Liberal Democrats have a plan to help rural people. This Government have shown that they do not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Dyke]

I thank the Minister, and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy); and I thank all hon. Members for their passionate and valuable contributions. I close by reiterating the need for tailored support for our rural communities. They are so often forgotten, but we need to recognise their importance to our society. We need the Government to understand the specific issues that such communities face and heed the calls from hon. Members present regarding the ways that the Government can better assist.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government support for rural communities.