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Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her words, which are in stark contrast to those of Conservative Front-Bench Members. I do indeed recognise the huge difference made by the resources that have been put, for example, into rural transport, which has certainly undergone a transformation. I share her concern about access to affordable housing, about which the Conservative party seems to have nothing to say, except to try to pretend that it would all be in greenbelt areas so nobody wants any of it, which is not a very constructive approach. I also understand and share my hon. Friend's concern that we should carry on making such improvements, and we will certainly continue to do what we can.

Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con): The right hon. Lady constantly used the word "delivery". Is she aware that delivery depends on reliable IT systems that do not fail? The Rural Payments Agency is under strain and the cattle tracing service has been criticised. The besetting sin of this Government is introducing schemes before they can deliver them, as with the whole tax credit system. Will she make sure that nothing is introduced until she is absolutely certain that it can be delivered?

Margaret Beckett: Some of the criticisms made of the cattle tracing service had validity but are well out of date. I entirely share the right hon. Gentleman's view that successful delivery depends on reliable IT, not least because, as he will probably recognise, when our Department was set up not only did neither of its constituent parts have reliable IT, but they could not talk to each other, so we are very mindful of the need for IT to underpin successful delivery of services.
 
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Paddy Tipping (Sherwood) (Lab): The final sentence of my right hon. Friend's statement stressed implementation. These are major changes for the Department and the various agencies involved, and they require primary legislation according to a timetable yet to be ascertained. What mechanisms and management structures will be put in place to handle those major changes and make them successful?

Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his recognition of what the Government are trying to achieve. We will be making much more information available to Members in, I hope, the near future. We believe and hope that a number of changes on the ground can begin next April, but as he says, changing the legal structures will require primary legislation, and obviously that depends on the Government's overall approach. I believe that we will begin to see differences next spring.

Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD): I welcome the additional £2 million for Business Link announced by the Secretary of State, which is probably just as well as there will be few farmers left in Devon and we will need other businesses. Can she speak to the other agencies that may be undermining her efforts? Royal Mail is about to reduce postal collections in Teignbridge and south Devon; BT is shutting and removing telephone boxes; and the Post Office is about to close seven post offices.

Margaret Beckett: Contrary to the carping that we hear across the Floor of the House, very many people in the farming community fully recognise not only that this Government have done an enormous amount to help and support British farming, but that the changes that we have negotiated and are putting in place will help to create a sounder future for the farming community over the next half-century and beyond, not least because the resources that it will receive will be given in return for public goods and are therefore much more likely to be accepted and welcomed by the public.

With regard to the hon. Gentleman's further comments, I am of course mindful that changes are taking place in rural areas, but I have already pointed out how much the Government are already doing to try to help to support rural post offices, which were one of his examples. He must be well aware of the changes that took place before we came to power, not all of which we can reverse.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I am not sure whether I heard my right hon. Friend mention rural governance in her statement, but I know that she will appreciate the importance of parish and town councils, in which I declare an interest. Does she accept that there is still a problem in rural Britain regarding the capacity of parish and town councils and the level of disagreement that sometimes takes over? Will she make sure that resources are put into the first layer of our democracy, because those bodies are, and will remain, very important?

Margaret Beckett: I entirely share my hon. Friend's view that there is an enormously important and valuable role for parish councils. He will be familiar with the
 
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quality parish council initiative to which we have often referred in the House. I am also mindful of the fact that it is often at that level that the voice of the rural populace can most clearly be heard. I assure him that capacity-building, support and training is very much part of the picture that we hope to create.

Mr. Anthony Steen (Totnes) (Con): I wonder whether the Secretary of State has considered getting rid of her rural policy and the galaxy of institutions and public officials that surround it, and whether the people living in the countryside might be better off as a result.

Margaret Beckett: I am not entirely sure what the hon. Gentleman means. All I can say is that the Conservative party did their best to get rid of the prosperity of rural areas when they were in power.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): I congratulate the Secretary of State on the statement; it reminds us why many of us voted for her 10 years ago in the leadership election. She is right to refer to the priorities of rural business, rural exclusion and rural environment, and she cites tranquillity as an important characteristic of the countryside. Where in her Department is the co-ordinated liaison with the aviation industry to try to tackle the problems of those villages that lie under flight paths or are scattered around regional airports, where environmental controls are particularly defective?

Margaret Beckett: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome for the statement. I understand his point keenly, because shortly after the planes that he refers to fly over villages in his constituency, they fly over mine. I am therefore mindful of his concerns. I simply say to him that we endeavour to maintain the right balance between economic development and social and environmental concerns—it is not easy, but we will continue to try to do so.

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) (Con): Following the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) and the Secretary of State's inadequate reply, will she at least seriously consider shutting down the talking shop regional assembly in the south-west and the regional development agency, with all their glossy brochures and strategy documents which do absolutely nothing for the people who live and work
 
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in the south-west, and instead spend the time and effort on cutting taxes and reducing regulations on those people?

Margaret Beckett: We are doing a great deal of work on whether and how we can achieve a better, more consistent and light-touch approach to regulation. The right hon. Gentleman may want all the voices for rural areas—what he calls a talking shop—silenced and the regional development agencies closed down, but many people in rural areas, as elsewhere, recognise the valuable and viable role that those bodies can play. Maybe they do not like to say so to the Conservative party because they know that it is pledged to abolish them.

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): The general approach of much more devolution has to be right, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on that, but will it place new and greater demands on the rural proofing that has been so well championed by the existing Countryside Agency? If so, what does she think will happen to rural proofing in future?

Margaret Beckett: Obviously, responsibility at Government level remains with my Department, but we believe that a new, smaller and more focused Countryside Agency will be able to act very effectively as an independent adviser, advocate and watchdog for the interests of the countryside. That is certainly my hope and my intention.

Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): The Secretary of State referred to the valuable role of woodlands in tackling climate change, but not to their valuable role in the landscape, the forestry industry and local economies. How does she square her comments with the fact that private planting of woodland is at an all-time low and the losses being incurred by Forest Enterprise are at an all-time high, at the expense of the taxpayer? What is her strategy for putting that right?

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