Rural Communities in Cumbria: Levelling Up

Debate between Tim Farron and Neil Hudson

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Hudson]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee on which I am privileged to sit. He makes a fantastic point. It is about connectivity across our great country, and rural Devon is the same as rural Cornwall and the same as rural Cumbria, and we need to get it right. We have to ensure that everyone gets good broadband and a good mobile phone signal. It is a point well made.

The Government aim to have gigabit-capable broadband to 85% of the United Kingdom by 2025. I hope that we can still move that way, but in my constituency, gigabit availability unfortunately languishes at a low 7.2% and the download speed is just over half the national average, so we are well behind. My plea is that we can have some help with that. In our part of the world, the mobile signal is poor. Sadly, there are many notspots in my part of the world.

The Government have taken some positive steps. I welcome Project Gigabit. The shared rural network will have a key impact, too, as will the voucher schemes. Communities are partnering with fantastic companies, such as Broadband for the Rural North. I have seen that first hand in communities such as Kirkoswald, Mallerstang and Ravenstonedale. I pay tribute to companies such as B4RN, its chief executive Michael Lee, the teams and the volunteers who do fantastic work to connect people in isolated communities. I make a plea to the Minister for more help from his Department, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and indeed the Home Office in terms of shared mobile phone masts for emergencies.

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

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my neighbour, for securing this important debate and I congratulate him on a good speech. Does he agree that the communities of which he rightly speaks are at huge risk as affordable and family homes collapse into the Airbnb and second homes sector? There cannot really be levelling up for rural Cumbria if the Government will not take action to ensure that those communities are protected and that a limit is put on the number of Airbnbs and second homes that there can be in our communities.

[Dr Hudson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which I note. If he can temper his patience, I will get on to that topic shortly. I am surprised to see him here; I expected to see him in my constituency perhaps where he has been a frequent and regular visitor in recent weeks. Anyone might wonder whether boundary changes were imminent. I gently and respectfully remind him that we share similar issues in our two constituencies, but we do not share the same constituency.

I put it to the Government that we need to be cautious about future changes to things such as the BBC. In rural parts of the world, terrestrial TV is ever important and the BBC and public service broadcasters are a treasured national asset that deliver news, education and drama. Again, that came into sharp relief in the pandemic when kids at home were delivered a fantastic education through it. For rural areas, where we depend on terrestrial TV and where many homes do not have the internet at all, we cannot be thinking at a Government level about moving to a subscription-based model. I caution the Government that we need to be careful when we are making decisions about the treasured asset that is the BBC.

I turn now to interactions and local democracy. In the pandemic, our vital parish councils, which do such wonderful things for our communities, could meet in virtual or hybrid formats. Sadly, that modality is not now available. That is important and I have raised it with the Secretary of State on a number of occasions. I urge the Government to allow parish councils to continue to meet in virtual or hybrid formats. There are issues with rural isolation and the weather, with people’s jobs or caring responsibilities and with farmers. If we can empower local people to contribute to local democracy through that, we can learn the positive lessons of the pandemic.

In Cumbria, we are facing significant reform at a local government level with the changes to unitary councils. I am on public record as being against that, as I do not think now is the time for us to be doing it, and the groupings go against the natural geography and the community bonds. That said, we are where we are and we have to make the best of it and make it work. I make a plea to the Department, however, that ongoing projects should not be paralysed by that reshuffling and that we should certainly ensure that local democratic changes do not compromise local communities.

I turn now to the farming and agricultural sector, which is an important aspect of my constituency economically, as came into sharp relief during the pandemic because of food security. I pay tribute to our fantastic UK farmers and Cumbria farmers who deliver food to us and put food on our tables. Anyone in the food processing and marketing sectors needs to be thanked for what they have done. They are key workers.

The farming community faces many challenges, such as the changes to the funding system with the new environmental land management schemes. We also face challenges from trade deals. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, on which I sit, is now looking at the Israel trade deal. There are significant challenges to our farming communities and we have to ensure that the Government get it right and do not undermine or undercut our farmers so that we can stand up for our values on high environmental and animal welfare standards and can be a beacon for the rest of the world. I ask the Levelling Up Department to work with DEFRA to support that sector.

That sector has also been significantly challenged by seasonal labour issues—we have been looking at that on the EFRA Committee as well—and there are serious issues in the food processing sector. Again, the farming community now has a crisis that has been ongoing in the pig sector. Currently, in excess of 40,000 pigs have been slaughtered on farm that have not subsequently gone into the food supply chain, and I really urge the Government to work cross-Government to mitigate and avert this crisis.

Another huge part of the rural economy in Cumbria is tourism and hospitality. Again, they are facing similar labour issues. That has been exacerbated by covid, but Brexit has certainly been a factor, and we need to make sure that we can supply the labour that our vital businesses need locally. This sector needs ongoing support, and I urge the Minister to work with the Treasury to make sure that we can keep some of the measures in place, such as the VAT cut for tourism and hospitality businesses, that will make things better for them. We need to think about tax relief for small rural businesses as well.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) talked about the pressure on housing in local communities. We are a fantastic tourism part of the world up in Cumbria, and we have seen huge numbers of people come during the pandemic and when we started to open up. The pressure on local people to find local affordable housing has again come into sharp relief. With the increasing number of second homes in the area, locals are basically being priced out of their own local community. I really urge the Government to look at and address that with affordable housing, sensible planning and sensible measures, so that people can get on the housing ladder and it is not to their detriment when people come in and take second homes. I really urge the Government to look at that. Housing in our part of the world is very different from that in London. Again, when the Government are making changes and talking about changing boilers and such things, we have to bear in mind that many people in rural parts of the world have oil boilers, and we have to make sure we adapt. It is horses for courses.

Schools, pubs, shops and churches are the lifeblood of our local communities, and they need support. Many local communities are stepping up and acting together, such as the Kirkoswald community shop, and Bampton Valley community pub has now put together a shared programme to set up the pub again. However, we should not have to rely on the community stepping forward. We must get central Government working with local government and local communities, so I really urge the local government Department to offer more small grants so that we can put the life back into local communities.

Education is so important, and it plays a huge role in levelling up, with opportunities for young and old. We have had a very difficult time in Cumbria, and we have lost Newton Rigg College, the only land-based college in Cumbria. We worked very hard to try to save the college, but unfortunately that was unsuccessful. We now have pieces of the jigsaw coming together to try to rebuild land-based education in our community. I pay tribute to Newton Rigg Ltd, Newton Rigg Equestrian, Ullswater Community College and Myerscough College, which are working together with the Ernest Cook Trust and local stakeholders to see if we can get pieces of the jigsaw together. It is important that we rebuild land-based education in Cumbria.

To give an example, Ullswater Community College is a local high school with over 1,500 pupils, led brilliantly by headteacher Stephen Gilby, with a 600 square mile catchment area. I have raised this with the Prime Minister and the Education Secretary, but it urgently needs a rebuild, and I really press that message home to the Government. Outdoor education in Cumbria is a blessing for us, and that sector also needs to be supported. We have fantastic outdoor education centres, such as Blencathra outward bound centre. This is part of the recovery, it is about the life chances of young folk and it is very important for mental health.

Health underpins levelling up, so I really urge the Government to support rural healthcare. We welcome the fact that we have a new cancer centre that has opened up in Carlisle and a new diagnostic centre in Penrith, but on mental health we need to make sure that the message of parity with physical health comes through loud and clear. In the EFRA Committee, we have triggered an inquiry on rural mental health looking at the key issues and the key stressors. We have significant risk factors in our rural communities. We get shock events; we get floods, we get storms. Professions such as my own—the veterinary profession, but farmers as well—are over-represented with a risk of mental health and suicide, and there are the pressures of running businesses in our isolated communities. I urge the Government to try to address many of those issues at cross-Government level, and to support the communities that we live in and we love. We want to ensure that the people’s voice is heard down here in Westminster and in Whitehall.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Tim Farron and Neil Hudson

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

It is an honour to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). He made a comprehensive speech, and, not for the first time, I agreed with the colossal majority of what he said. It is also a huge honour to follow the new hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), who spoke earlier. I congratulate him on an excellent maiden speech—I know it is customary for us to say that, but it genuinely was an excellent maiden speech. He represents a beautiful part of the country, which he described very well. I had no idea that Kate Bush owed something to his constituency, but that is massively in its favour from my perspective.

The hon. Gentleman also spoke fondly about his predecessor, the late James Brokenshire, who entered the House on the same day as me, and of whom I was always fond. People speak fondly of James because of the way he conducted himself. It is sometimes very easy to say, “I like X”—a member of another party—“because we agree on certain issues”, but it was not that I considered James to be a particularly liberal Tory, although he may have been. That was not the point; it was how he conducted himself in this place, in meetings, and in all that he did. He showed grace and decency, he treated people as he found them, he was utterly honourable and trustworthy, and he was a very competent Minister. We miss him hugely.

We also welcome the hon. Gentleman massively, and I look forward to hearing many more speeches from him. He spoke today with great knowledge of the subject of the debate and with great insight, and, for what it is worth, I agreed with what he said. I think we may have reached a stage at which the number of Conservative Members who have spoken in favour of the Bill matches the number who have spoken against it, which is good to know .

I am broadly in favour of the Bill, because I think that how we treat animals is a moral indicator of how we are as a culture and as a society. It is a measure of our own humanity, so it is right that we as a country are proud of being a nation of animal lovers. Often the way to get any group of people to behave well is to remind them of how good they are, so it is important that we cling to this self-definition; but it is also important that our legislation follows that, so we will of course support the Bill’s Second Reading.

As a member of the European Union, this country, through article 13 of the Lisbon treaty, enshrined the acknowledgement of animal sentience in legislation. I welcome the fact that—following an unnecessary delay that has been mentioned by a number of Members on both sides of the House—we are now closing that gap. However, I think that the Bill represents a missed opportunity. Members do not need me to remind them of my views on whether it was wise to leave the European Union, but in the case of a number of aspects of our departure, we have opportunities to go one better than how the EU left us. In respect of the legislation at least, we have ensured that in theory we will now be no worse than we were in the EU. In practice, though, as several Members on both sides of the House have pointed out, if we sign trade deals with countries whose animal welfare standards are poorer than ours, we will put ourselves into a position where we are worse than we were before.

The most recent example is our trade deal with Australia. It is important to recognise that the Animal Sentience Committee will have no powers, as far as we can tell, to ensure that those deals—and further deals in the future—do not undermine animal welfare. It is not just a question of the treatment of animals and recognition of their sentience within the borders of this country; it is also a question of how countries that we deal with, in our name, treat those animals. If sovereignty means anything, it means our ability to affect other countries in so far as they relate to us; in the trade deal with Australia, we have failed to do that. This is true on three counts. When it comes to husbandry, I do not need to explain much about how the geography and the nature of farming in Australia differ from ours in the United Kingdom. The vast plains and the ranch-style farming in Australia mean that, to a large degree, there is no husbandry there.

[Dr Hudson]

I gently disagree with the hon. Member. Although he and I agree on many aspects of what we are discussing, as a vet who has worked on farms in Australia, I think he is making a very sweeping statement about the calibre and nature of farmers across Australia. He is correct that the geography and environment there is very different, but I can tell him from personal experience that many, many farmers out there farm to the highest standards, including when it comes to animal husbandry. To say that Australia has no animal husbandry is, frankly, incorrect.

[Tim Farron]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. He will recognise, particularly having been in Australia, the nature of that husbandry. In Cumbria, the welfare of livestock is tended to week in, week out. As many of my constituents who have farmed in Australia have informed me directly, the first time that someone in Australia knows that one of their animals might be ill is when they find its sun-bleached bones on the plains the following season. That is a different form of farming. Australians are not instinctively cruel people; that is not the point I am making—[Interruption.] I am sure that Members on both sides of the House understand that. I am saying, however, that lower standards are cheaper, including standards that do not require mandatory closed circuit television coverage in abattoirs, which we have here, or the restrictions that we have here on the transportation of live animals.

Given that we know that poorer welfare standards are cheaper, these trade deals—particularly the one with Australia—offer a financial and economic market advantage to countries with poorer standards than ours that export to us. That not only undermines the morality of the UK’s commitment to high animal welfare, but massively undermines our farmers. Every farmer in Cumbria and the rest of the United Kingdom suffers because the UK Government have chosen to do a deal with a country that we have much in common with, but that does not acknowledge the animal welfare issues there. That is why the Animal Sentience Committee and the recognition of sentience in the Bill, which I support, will not have an effect on all the animals affected by decisions taken in this place. This is an abuse of an opportunity—a missed opportunity—and a waste of our sovereignty, but the Bill is good in so far as it goes, so I welcome it and will vote for it.

I do criticise those Members—not my neighbour, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, but some of his colleagues—who have been critical of the Bill not because it does not go far enough, but because it goes as far as it does. They are wrong in that. People have said that the Bill is a threat to farming, but it is no such thing. I speak to farmers throughout my communities and further afield, and they welcome the Bill. They are committed to animal welfare—it is in their DNA.

We should recognise, however, the threat to farmers from trade deals, and from the Government’s dogged insistence on phasing out the basic payment scheme before the arrival of the new environmental land management scheme. Just last month, farmers lost between 5% and 25% of their basic payment, and there is no sign, even slightly over the horizon, of anything to replace it. That will put small British family farms out of business, and there will be a knock-on effect on animal welfare, because part of the reason for our animal welfare culture and why our standards are as high as they are in this country is that they are based on the model and example of the British family farm.

Although I welcome and will support the Bill, and think that there is much to be said for it, I want to rush through some areas where things need to be improved. First, I hope that the fact that the duty to enforce recognition of animal sentience falls on the committee and not primarily the Secretary of State will be changed during the passage of the Bill. That is not right; it gives less responsibility and power to the Secretary of State.

I am also very concerned that clause 3 requires the Secretary of State only to lodge before Parliament a response to reports from the Animal Sentience Committee. That could be a two-line dismissal, and then what would we do? I guess the Opposition could call an Opposition day debate, and we could ask questions at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions, but as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said, the opportunities for scrutiny are minimised. The task of initiating these things is all put on Opposition Members or Government Back Benchers. Set pieces will not be a part of the process, and it would be entirely possible for the Secretary of State effectively to dismiss any report pretty perfunctorily.

As has been said by a number of colleagues from across the House, we should not treat this matter purely in the negative, although unfortunately at the moment the Bill does that. If we are so proud of our heritage and our high animal welfare standards, why is the committee and its work not about promoting good practice around the country, and in every aspect of our life in so far as it impacts animals, as well as about trying to stamp out bad practice? Again, that feels like a missed opportunity to have gone further and done better. As I have strongly implied, the Animal Sentience Committee should have the power to comment on trade deals. My fear is that, on those matters, it could end up—a bit like the Trade and Agriculture Commission—being a watchdog that may bark occasionally but does not have very much bite. The Government are certainly under no compulsion or obligation to take any notice of it whatsoever.

Many animal welfare charities have expressed concerns to me about the lack of resource for the Animal Sentience Committee. I acknowledge that point, as it goes with our concern about the absence of parliamentary scrutiny and the relegation of these serious issues to a body that is one place removed from this place. The committee chair will be “hired”, for want of a better word, for 20 days a year, and members of the committee for 15. There is no dedicated secretariat—I understand that will be provided by DEFRA staff—and no obvious independent budget. All that adds up to just about ticking the box, and just about copying what the EU did, but without anybody watching over our shoulder. Meanwhile, we are not doing anything. We are meant to be a global trading nation whose footprint and impact is felt around the world. What a missed opportunity to make that impact and do something good when it comes to animal welfare. So this is not three cheers; it is perhaps two, or more likely one, but it is better than nothing, and I will vote for the Bill.