Rural Communities: Government Support

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance once again, Sir Charles. It is a real privilege to follow everybody in this debate, but especially my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), who succeeded in securing this debate and made an outstanding speech at the beginning.

I want to cover many issues we have already talked about, and I will start with farming. Farming is crucial to feeding our country, protecting and restoring our environment, tackling climate change, promoting biodiversity and underpinning the landscape that our tourism economy depends on, but it has been badly let down. Farmers across my community feel angry with this Government for many reasons—including the trade deals with New Zealand and Australia that threw them under the bus—but specifically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned, the botched transition from the old scheme to the new scheme.

We believe in environmental land management schemes, and we think the project is one worth supporting. However, the Government promised £2.4 billion in their manifesto for farming in England, and the latest figures for 2022-23 show £1.97 billion for agriculture in England. Environmental schemes have increased in their expenditure to farmers by £145 million a year—great—but basic payments have fallen by £490 million. We see upland livestock farm incomes down by 44% and lowland livestock farm incomes down by 41%.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I remind hon. Members of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. If the Government find it so difficult to put money into farming in the way my hon. Friend describes, could they not perhaps give a bit more attention to ensuring that farmers get a fair price for their product at the farm gate? The Groceries Code Adjudicator has not achieved what we wanted it to, but surely somebody, at some point, has got to address the fact that that market is failing, and it fails to the disadvantage of our farmers and rural communities.

[Tim Farron]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point; he is absolutely right. The Groceries Code Adjudicator has the capacity to potentially make a big difference for farmers and growers—producers of all kinds. But the reality is that it does not have the sanctions and remit. It is not allowed to take third-party referrals from the likes of us or the NFU on behalf of farmers who are being stitched up by processors or retailers. It is absolutely right that the Government support farming, but the market should be fixed so it does not exploit our farmers either.

We already have a situation where we are only 58% self-sufficient in farming in this country. We are never going to deliver the environmental goods we need if we do not have those expert hands on the land delivering those environmental policies. Our landscapes are at risk of changing radically, dramatically and negatively to undermine—for example—the £3.5 billion-a-year tourism economy of the English Lake district.

Moving on to broadband, Project Gigabit is a good idea, but there will be many people who miss out. Thousands of homes in my part of Cumbria are outside the scope, or in deferred scope, of Project Gigabit. B4RN—the Minister may be aware of it—or Broadband for the Rural North is an excellent local community interest company. It could absolutely connect all of those homes in—I am going to mention them now—parts of Sedbergh, Kaber, Murton, Long Marton, Winton, Warcop, Ormside, Hilton, Hartley and Bleatarn.

I mention those places because, if the broadband voucher system were still available, they could be connected now through B4RN, if it was not for the fact that Project Gigabit is trying to only ride one horse, and is not prepared to accept that not every issue has to be dealt with in the same way—one size does not fit all. I ask the Minister to look specifically at those communities and consider restoring the vouchers to them so that they can be connected well and connected now.

I want to briefly move on to buses. The right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) rightly points out the importance and value of the £2 bus fare, which I think has increased footfall or “busfall” by about 10%—it certainly has in my community. The £2 bus fare does a fat load of good if there is no bus. I want this Government to give local authorities like mine the power to run their own bus companies and the funding to ensure that they work. Buses often do not make a profit, but they are the oil that ensures that the economy works in communities to keep people connected and to ensure that people can get to work and school, or make use of leisure facilities. Back our buses.

[Keir Mather]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

If the hon. Gentleman gives way, he will squeeze the time available to the mover of the debate to wind up.

[Tim Farron]

In which case, I really apologise—I will not give way. I apologise, Sir Charles. I do not want to be ungenerous to the mover especially.

I will finish on health, and I want to talk about cancer in particular. The reality in a community like mine is that, throughout south Cumbria, there are around 700 people having to travel each year for radiotherapy treatment to their nearest radiotherapy centre—the Rosemere Cancer Centre in Preston in Lancashire, which is excellent. That is a two, three or four hour round trip for those 700 people. Swindon has recently been allocated a satellite unit on the basis of 600 patients who would use that centre. My call is for a satellite radiotherapy centre to be placed at the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal to serve south Cumbria and to ensure that those people receive the treatment they need.

The latest figures tell us that 38% of people in south Cumbria diagnosed with cancer wait more than two months for their first intervention, and 54% of those in places in north Cumbria, such as Appleby, Kirkby Stephen and Shap, have to wait more than two months for their first intervention. We know that, for every four weeks of delay in cancer treatment, one has 10% less chance of surviving. I believe that people in rural communities have as much right to have a life ahead of them than those who live elsewhere, yet we have a funding situation that does not treat them as such. I will finish there, Sir Charles, and thank you for overseeing this debate. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I call the spokesman for the SNP, who has five minutes.