Rural Communities

Stephen Gilbert Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Miss McIntosh]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention, and I will come back and say more on that point.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs must address the matter of higher than average house prices and the lack of affordable housing in rural areas. Allowing the rural economy to grow, overcoming barriers to growth and improving rural businesses’ access to finance should be among its top priorities. We ask local enterprise partnerships to address the needs of rural businesses, and we urge the Government to ensure that financial support is offered to the business sector. The business bank, the single local growth fund and other such funds are available to rural businesses. We recognise the needs of rural communities. Currently, deprivation, affordability and provision of public services need to be addressed.

Let me explain why we called for this report. In 2010, the Government abolished the rural watchdog, the Commission for Rural Communities, and replaced it with a beefed-up rural communities policy unit in DEFRA that operates as a centre of rural expertise, supporting and co-ordinating activity within and beyond the Department. It champions rural issues across the Government. We were told that the unit would play an important role in helping all Government Departments ensure that their policies are effectively rural-proofed before decisions are made.

Earlier this year, we commenced an inquiry into rural communities to assess how successful DEFRA and the new unit have been at championing rural issues across Government to achieve their target of fair, practical and affordable outcomes for rural residents, businesses and communities. Our findings led us to conclude that the rural communities policy unit faces a difficult task if it is to meet that ambition. Too often, Government policy has failed to take account of the challenges that exist in providing services to a rural population that is often sparsely distributed and lacks access to basic infrastructure.

I have mentioned the local government settlement and how rural communities pay higher council tax bills per dwelling yet receive less Government grant and have access to fewer public services than their urban counterparts. I will not go over all our conclusions in that regard, but the Government have, in part, recognised their misjudgment by announcing an extra £8.5 million efficiency support payment for one year only for the most rural councils. Some payments are as small as £650. As welcome as any extra funding is, that is clearly not the long-term solution to the problem of rural councils not getting their fair share. Regrettably, the Government rejected our call for the gap in funding between rural and urban councils to be reduced. We must and we will continue to press the case.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this debate. In Cornwall, the reality is that we have higher than average council tax, lower than average earnings and less money spent per head in the rural areas than in the urban areas. Closing that gap by just 10% a year for the next five years would mean an additional £16 million of income for people in Cornwall. Does she not agree that the Government should push ahead with this idea of getting a fair share for rural areas?