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Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham): I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing the Bill before the House. The Government outlined their commitment to rural communities in the White Paper, and the Bill is the first tangible measure resulting from it.
I shall deal first with the rural ride on which we were taken by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). He presented a view of rural England that I do not recognise. Many people in the village of
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The problem of rural England--I accept that it is not all rosy--is largely a question of prosperity, not poverty. One of the reasons why rural shops and businesses suffer is the changing nature of rural communities. People are not put off from going to rural communities. They want to live there--the quality of life is high, not as the hon. Gentleman suggests--they want to retire there and they want to work from home there.
The problems of rural communities stem from increased demand as a result of rising house prices and the fact that car ownership has increased enormously in villages. As a consequence, people often prefer to do their shopping in supermarkets, which are cheaper, and not in the rural shops. That is what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seeks to address.
The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras spoke about the closure of rural schools. The only body in my constituency in Northumberland that wanted to close down rural schools was the Labour county council. It targeted 15 schools on the ground that there were too many surplus places. The surplus places were not in rural schools, but in schools in urban areas. Instead of dealing with that, the county council forced rural children to move into towns for their education.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned closed surgeries. Most of us who represent rural constituencies see new surgeries and medical facilities being developed all the time. I have some splendid facilities in my constituency. We do not have problems with ambulances: we have a new air ambulance, and four-wheel-drive ambulances are being introduced by the Northumbria ambulance service.
We do not have a closed countryside, with closed footpaths and no access. We have increasing access to the countryside through various Government schemes, such as the countryside stewardship scheme.
The hon. Gentleman painted an entirely false picture of rural life. In many respects, rural life is prospering. Energy prices are falling and the availability of the Internet and cheaper telephones makes it possible for people to set up businesses and run them in the country.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health intends to introduce measures to boost rural medicine and to reintroduce a service similar to that provided by the old cottage hospitals. I believe that the false picture of rural England and Wales painted by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras was totally misleading. Of course there are problems in former coal mining villages, but the Government are seeking to address those problems.
The real importance of the Bill lies behind its clauses and schedules; it is the return of power to small towns and villages by strengthening the role of parishes and by giving district councils a bigger say in shaping the economy of their areas through the rate relief scheme.
In my Northumbrian constituency, which is one of the largest in England, rural shops are vital. In Northumberland, one cannot simply jump into a car and
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Bellingham, for example, in the north Tyne valley, with a population of more than 800 people, still has two banks and a number of shops, including two butchers. It is a valuable local facility for shopping. Allendale Town in Allendale also supports a good shopping centre, which includes the Allendale Co-operative Society. It is the only one-branch co-operative society in the country. It is very well regarded by the local people. Allendale has a population of 740.
However, an air of uncertainty hangs over the shops because of the problems to which I referred. Rural newsagents, who often double up as the general store and post office, have particular problems. They have seen diminishing sales of newspapers, and they face increased charges from wholesalers while trying to keep in touch with the prices charged in supermarkets. They have a struggle.
If some of the sterling people who work in rural shops worked out what they earned per hour for all the hours they worked, they would find that it was very little. The people who run the shops deserve our congratulations because they do, thank goodness, provide a valued service. Reducing the burden of business rates will be a small but useful contribution to cutting the shopkeepers' overheads, and I believe that the community as a whole will appreciate that.
We have heard about pubs. It is important that local authorities like the two in my constituency, Tynedale and Castle Morpeth, use the discretionary scheme to the maximum. Naturally, they will have to draw up criteria about who should benefit, but they should not concentrate purely on the rural post office and the rural general store. They should look further afield. The village in which I live, with a population of 64, still boasts a pub and a post office. I am glad to say that the pub is extremely well used. It would be a tragic loss to the village and the community if that pub had to close.
Mr. Rendel:
Can the hon. Gentleman confirm my assumption that, if the standard spending assessment is not increased in line with the amount of discretionary relief granted by the local authorities, his proposal that the local authorities should all use their discretionary relief to the greatest extent is guaranteed to lead to considerable increases in council tax next year?
Mr. Atkinson:
I cannot confirm that point, because it is a detail of which I am not aware at this stage. Clearly, those are issues that we shall examine in Committee. As I understand the Bill, the larger portion of the discretionary relief will still be met out of Exchequer funds. The value that district councils put on local facilities, such as pubs and post offices, will help them to decide whether they enter the scheme. I am encouraging my local authority to do so, and I am also encouraging it to include pubs. No doubt someone will accuse me of supporting boozing on the rates.
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Local garages are also important. In many respects, they serve petrol almost as a favour for their customers these days. The price that they have to charge is the price at which they have to buy their petrol, which makes them extremely uncompetitive. However, in the rural areas of Northumberland, it is impossible for many people to go to a supermarket to fill up their car. They have to have petrol on the doorstep, and the garages provide an extremely valuable service. Most of them also make money by running a garage with car mechanics, or with a general store attached to it. They should also be very much considered by the local authorities when they are deciding whom they should use their discretionary powers to help.
Part II, which proposes the revival of the parish council, is extremely welcome. The parish council has been a vital part of rural life for many years. It is sad that since the war, its powers have been slowly transferred upwards, leaving it with little to look after bar the odd war memorial and one or two other things. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's proposals are extremely good and will help to reinvigorate parish councils. That will then solve the other problem of persuading people to serve on parish councils. If we give parish councils a better and more important role, people will wish to serve on them.
At the moment, parish councils sit at the bottom of a heap. In my constituency, where we have a national park, the parish council sits below a national park authority, which has many planning powers, the district council and the county council. If the Opposition get their way, those councils will no doubt sit under a Labour assembly for the north of England, which would be yet another administrative burden. I hope that that will not come about.
Parish councils, as we have heard, are regularly consulted by district councils. They make their views known, but too often they feel that those views are totally ignored. It is important that district councils are sensitive about parish councils' views on matters, especially planning matters. Local people are, for example, more likely to be sympathetic to somebody who wants to build a property for somebody in the locality to live in than they are to be to a developer who comes in to build a number of houses. That difference should be reflected by district councils when they decide whether to grant planning permission.
The extra powers will be welcome, and I have no doubt that parish councils will make use of them, especially for transport. The post bus service, which was mentioned by one of my hon. Friends, has been extremely successful. However, the problem of buses in rural areas is the one that I mentioned earlier. There is a problem because more and more rural people have motor cars, so fewer and fewer people use buses. We cannot turn the clock back; that is the situation with which we have to live.
I am glad that parish councils are to have powers over traffic and traffic-calming measures. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest concerns of people living in villages is the speed of the traffic going through their village. If, as I believe, they have an opportunity of making a contribution towards slowing that traffic down, that is another good reason why somebody would want to serve on a parish council for the benefit of his or her community.
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