House of Commons
Wednesday 4 February 1998
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Rural Poverty
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Janet Anderson.]
9.34 am
Mrs. Diana Organ (Forest of Dean): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to have this debate this morning. I raised the debate at the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who, like many others in the House, share an interest in this issue.
Poverty is not just concerned with money--or, rather, the lack of it--but that remains central to the issue. The most relevant definition of poverty that I could find was provided by Action with Communities in Rural Areas, which said:
Poverty, urban or rural, is undoubtedly debilitating. It limits people in every aspect of their lives. Urban poverty is blatant. We all see it, in high-rise flats, rough sleepers in cardboard boxes, dereliction, graffiti and litter. It is acknowledged by decision makers, and is politically recognised.
However, rural poverty is hidden. It is masked in its isolation. It is scattered in small pockets of deprivation that often sit cheek by jowl with great wealth. It is obscured by the landscape. It sits uncomfortably with our national perception of the rural idyll. We visit, or even live in, the countryside, yet we do not see it. However glorious the scenery, it does not deliver employment, housing or education. However beautiful the Peak district, the Yorkshire dales or the Wye valley, one cannot eat the scenery.
The problem has gone unrecognised for many years. The previous Administration overwhelmingly ignored national research presented by organisations and academics that highlighted the true plight of the poor in this country. The Breadline report, by Mack and Lansey, in 1985, showed that 22 per cent. of the British population were in poverty or were on the margins of it.
The previous Administration ignored the evidence that Britain was becoming a two-nation state: the rich and the poor. That was exemplified in rural areas of England, where earnings were known to be below the national average. The earnings gap between rural counties and the
English mean widened between 1980 and 1995. Indeed, Cloke et al identified in their study of 12 rural areas that 44 per cent. of households in rural counties received a gross annual salary of less than £8,000.
The indicators used for identifying areas of deprivation have an unfair bias towards urban areas. The census enumeration districts, used for collecting the data, are too large. They obscure the small pockets of rural deprivation that are hidden among the swathes of more wealthy rural residents.
The aggregation of the earning statistics only conceals isolated poverty by raising incomes to above the average, especially in villages and market towns. The ownership of a car, for instance, is taken as an affluence indicator, while in rural areas it is a necessity, because there is no integrated public transport. Seventy-five per cent. of all English parishes do not have a daily bus service. Many people in rural areas sacrifice much to keep the car on the road.
Children living in high-rise flats are a good indicator of poverty, but not in the country. Detached houses are seen as a sign of wealth, which, more often than not, is true in a town or city, but in the country, isolated detached cottages can hide behind their doors elderly couples struggling on meagre incomes.
There are other ways of mapping an area. The indicators used are not the only ones available. Other statistical information throws up a different picture of the areas of deprivation. In 1997, Oxford university mapped four rural counties--Wiltshire, Dorset, Shropshire and Oxfordshire--using local authority information on housing benefit claimants and council tax rebates. The map exposed rural deprivation that had previously been hidden.
In Gloucestershire, a bid to the single regeneration challenge fund, led by the county council in partnership with other agencies, especially Gloucestershire rural community council, proposed a project to regenerate the most deprived market towns in the county. A matrix of criteria was used to identify them, including unemployment, absence of car ownership, children in low-income households, overcrowding and general lack of amenities.
Seven market towns in the county were shown to have areas of real poverty not previously revealed by other surveys. The project showed high unemployment, lack of job opportunities, drug and alcohol abuse problems among the young, and people distanced by isolation, poor access and, most notably, inadequate transport services.
Data are only as good as the information that they examine. There should be a review of indicators. They should be able to locate small, scattered, isolated areas of poverty and sensitive to the needs of all areas, urban and rural. Hon. Members who represent rural constituencies face the problems of rural poverty in our surgeries. However, it is vital not only that we are personally aware of deprivation but that it is recognised politically and in the Government statistics that are collected and acknowledged by decision makers.
Rural communities are often tightly knit. It can be like living in a goldfish bowl. That has its advantages, but it can often lead to people hiding their poverty from their neighbours. Pride and self-esteem prevent people from revealing their desperate plight. In towns and cities where large communities face similar problems, less stigma
attaches to declaring disadvantage. That is not true of villages and hamlets. The elderly in particular see shame in not being able to cope, and do not seek help. At present, we have no method of identifying such people.
There are self-help groups in urban areas, such as the Matson neighbourhood community project. It is an innovative scheme on a large council estate in Gloucester that has created a network of self-help activities ranging from advice centres to training opportunities, activities for the young and programmes to combat crime and vandalism. It is a wonderful example of a community taking control and trying to raise standards of living for everyone on the estate. That model would be difficult to replicate in a rural environment. The deprived communities in rural areas are small and scattered. It is difficult to give such communities self-help programmes. A new approach needs to be considered.
One is doubly disadvantaged when one is poor and lives in the countryside, because of the lack of good public transport. No transport means that one lives in a no-go area: no-go to advice centres, doctors, jobs or interviews.
Last week, a group of students from the Royal Forest of Dean college visited me in the House of Commons. I had invited them because they had completed a survey of transport issues concerning young people in the area. Ironically, they arrived back at Gloucester railway station only to discover that the last bus had departed and that there were no rail connections that night stopping at Lydney, the only railway station in my constituency. One lad had to beg a lift. Was it 11 pm or midnight? No, it was 6.50 pm--hardly late.
The deregulation of bus services in 1985 led to the demise of rural bus services and has given rise to absolute rural isolation. I welcome the Government's commitment to an integrated transport system and investment in public transport with the recent announcement allowing local authorities to use a hypothecated tax to help establish better public transport systems.
There are, however, other options that can be developed and extended to improve rural transport, such as dial-a-ride schemes that offer a bus service to the elderly. They are liberating for such people in remote areas but could be extended to parents at home with children, who are often unable even to get to the shops. Cornwall has piloted a scheme whereby post office vans run regular routes and are adapted to carry passengers and provide an extra service in remote areas. We must re-think and take initiatives to implement innovative options to increase the mobility of all in rural areas.
For many people, isolation means real deprivation. However, access is about not only mobility but information and services. If people cannot access information, how can they know what is available, or that they are receiving the services and benefits to which they are entitled? The move taken by many local authorities to open one-stop shops offering a range of advice on local authority issues has been successful, but they are often absent in rural areas. Advice centres spring up ad hoc from the voluntary sector but they can be disjointed and their services inconsistent if they cover large areas. They often lack a co-ordinated focus.
Rural areas must have equality of provision of services with urban areas. They should not be discriminated against just because such provision is more difficult or expensive. We must ensure that resources from central Government recognise the cost of providing rural services.
In 1996-97 in shire counties, local authorities were expected to spend £417 on social service provision for each elderly person. The national average was £485. The amount spent in inner-city London boroughs was double: £878. Such disparity must not be sustained. It is recognised that virtually all rural services inevitably cost more because of the dispersed population and lack of economies of scale. The money provided by central Government has not reflected that. Rural communities are asking not for special treatment but for equity of provision.
To solve the problems of rural poverty, we must have what the rural community councils call the three-legged stool approach, which tackles all aspects of rural poverty. The three legs are economic, social and environmental regeneration. This Government have been the first not only to acknowledge social exclusion nationally but to tackle it. They have set up a social exclusion unit. To be truly successful nationally, it must have a rural dimension.
The Labour Government have put in place new policies that will help to lift people out of poverty. The welfare-to-work programme, with the minimum wage, will start to address the regeneration of rural areas and provide real job opportunities at a decent wage. Too often, rural employment is seasonal and low wage. The decision that there will be regional deviations from the minimum wage will help, but the welfare-to-work programme must recognise the added cost of providing for a scattered, isolated clientele and the difficulties of travelling to work and to training venues. Many training programmes will have to be individually delivered, so economies of scale will not come into play.
Imaginative schemes already exist to help to overcome such difficulties. The jump start programme has been successfully piloted in the Cotswolds. It employs a transport broker to co-ordinate information and encourage car sharing but also manages a fleet of mopeds available at minimum cost to young people so that they can attend interviews and training. Forty per cent. of new deal applicants needed help with transport in rural areas such as the Cotswolds. The scheme should be duplicated as good practice in all rural new deal initiatives.
The Government are putting into place regional development agencies that will have a strategic regional remit to ensure economic regeneration across the whole of regions. They must have the three-legged stool approach. Sustainable economic regeneration is possible only if social and community regeneration goes hand in hand with economic development. The previous Administration created a cycle of decline in rural communities. Their relaxation of planning led to great influxes of commuters invading small villages, which radically altered the make-up of communities.
Wealthy commuters often looked for their services elsewhere. They shopped and worked in the towns, and used urban post offices close to where they worked. The viability of local village shops was undermined. Post offices were closed. Services such as garages and other shops vital to a living, breathing community diminished.
That is devastating for the less well-off in the community. The shops that remained open often had prices up to 15 per cent. higher to cope with increased overheads and take advantage of the tourist trade.
The lack of services is shown by the fact that 42 per cent. of parishes have no permanent shop; 43 per cent. have no post office; 49 per cent. have no school; and 83 per cent. have no general practitioner based in the parish. I welcome the dial-a-nurse initiative in the health White Paper; it will be useful for rural areas to have some contact with such nurses.
"Poverty is going short materially, socially and emotionally. It means coping with the stress of managing on very little money. Above all, poverty takes away the tools to create the building blocks for the future. It stops people being able to take control of their own lives."
It is about being unable to participate fully in society, about being isolated and excluded.
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