Rural Economy

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, it is great to see my noble friend Lord Roborough back in his place just in time for this important debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Fuller on securing it. There is no doubt that the rural economy, just like most of the UK, is struggling. Unfortunately, some of that is due to recent changes in a variety of areas of employment, but I will not pretend that it has not always faced more challenges than are experienced by most people in this country.

A few years ago, I was lead author on the policy paper Unleashing Rural Opportunity. Even then, I was challenging somewhat the Cabinet Office two-by-two matrix on how we determine median pay and employment. As soon as we took it down to a three-by-three matrix and started looking at district council level, it painted a very different picture from what Whitehall wanted to think was going on, which portrayed all of Wales and Cornwall as exceptionally poor. When you do the detailed work and analysis, it is not the same picture. Within counties, at a district council level, you see quite a difference. That is happening at not only a rural level but a coastal level.

I am conscious that this continues to be a challenge. I appreciate that the Government may be trying to look into it but, unfortunately, as my noble friend Lord Fuller pointed out, there is a systematic degradation going on. It is not deliberate, but it is happening, even on small things such as proposed changes to drink-driving limits. The impact on hospitality in the countryside will be significant, yet there is no evidence to suggest that those sorts of accidents or links are there in the countryside. We have to keep reminding ourselves to think about the minority of people in this country—not necessarily in terms of the land they cover—and how policy driven by Westminster and Whitehall can have an impact.

Plenty of noble Lords will be able to talk about farming or similar. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, that Wheels to Work is definitely still going. It is now often run by charities, and DWP helps to pay for it. I will focus not on the farmers or farriers—all key industries in our agriculture—but the opportunities to which noble Lords have already referred.

It is twofold, about colleges and childcare. More than half of young people cannot get to an FE college within half an hour. That starts to limit the options available to them and what sort of jobs they can do. I am conscious that we want to try to improve opportunities for young people through apprenticeships and the like. We need to keep focused on how we spend the increased amount on bursaries that was provided a few years ago and make sure it is focused on rural young people so that they can get to colleges to open up opportunities for them. It is important that we try to stop the drain of people moving away from the countryside to the cities and major towns by making sure they can get into work.

The other challenge is about being in and staying in work, and that is to do with childcare. When I was in the Cabinet, I failed to persuade my own Government about how to deal with childcare. We regularly talk about 30 hours a week. That is based on 38 weeks a year. It is entirely around school terms. We have seen a significant drop in the number of childminders, which started under a Labour Government and continued under a Conservative Government, while the proposals put forward by the Government are about school-based nurseries and the focus on term time.

A significant part of employment is connected to hospitality in the countryside and on the coast. When do people need flexible childcare? They need it during the summer holidays. I encourage the Minister to work with other government departments to look again, not just to see the rose-tinted view of what life is like in rural areas but to go a bit further into the detail to see why it is that the lowest-paid people and the lowest employment—not unemployment—are in the countryside, and to make changes to reverse that progression.