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Lord Graham of Edmonton: Do you want to bet?
Earl Ferrers: The noble Lord opposite, the Chief Whip, loves making interjections from a sedentary position. I am not going to bet. It would be quite inappropriate for me to take a bet from the noble Lord across the Dispatch Box. That puts the noble Lord in his place. Fortunately, we have avoided a lot of the jargon, except for the contribution of my noble friend Lord Selborne. I thought that my noble friend would do better. He referred to a top-down approach. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to a bottom-up approach. Both expressions are absolutely dreadful. If anyone wants to reform the CAP he can start on the language. People use such absurd language and believe that they are very smart and that everyone knows what they are talking about. A short while ago I went to Cork to attend the conference to which the noble Lord, Lord Carter, referred. Somebody there referred to the need for "more interactivity across trans-sectoral boundaries". I have always believed it childish to talk like that. I have now got it off my chest. Although I did not expect to say it
to my noble friend Lord Selborne and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, I have said it to both of them. I hope that we will not hear such expressions again.The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, also made a mistake. He does not usually make mistakes. He said that a brownfield site was land that had just been ploughed up. As a matter of fact, he is wrong. He does not know what it is. A brownfield site is recycled rural or urban land.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, that was the very point I made. The noble Earl misquotes me. I said that brownfield land was misdescribed and could be viewed as arable land. I knew perfectly well, as I thought I made clear, that brownfield land is exactly as the noble Earl has said.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, in that case I apologise fully and profusely for misdirecting your Lordships as to what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, said. I thought that he had said what I said he had said.
The countryside and the people who live in it have seen the most enormous changes over the past few years or so. Traditional rural industries such as forestry and agriculture are no longer the mainstay of the economy of the countryside. Some industries like mining have declined; others such as light industry and small businesses have developed. Computers and faxes have enabled work that could previously be done only in towns to be done in the countryside. Various noble Lords have referred to that. Only a short while ago I visited a village hall that had been given help for rehabilitation by my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth's Rural Development Commission. I asked the chairman what he did. He said that he was a German technical translator. When I asked what on earth he meant by that, he said that he translated technical journals from German into English and from English into German, and he did it all by faxes and computers. His job was right in the heart of rural Suffolk. That demonstrates how that kind of activity is taking place more and more in the countryside.
I saw another small business which was also assisted by the Rural Development Commission. It was an old pigsty that had been modernised and turned into a mail order business concerned with horse food supplements. It was doing colossal business all over the world and providing employment to the rural community. All of that is good.
In recent years rural enterprise has performed better than enterprise in urban areas. In general, the countryside has enjoyed higher growth than urban areas with lower levels of unemployment. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, said that unemployment in rural areas was greater than in urban areas. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, that is not true. The number of economically active people in rural areas increased by 122,000 between the summer of 1992 and the summer of 1996, compared with a net increase in all of England of only 109,000. Economic activity is higher in rural areas than in England as a whole--82 per cent. in rural areas compared with 79.6 per cent. in England as a
whole. So employment-wise, oddly enough--I agree that one would not expect it--rural parts of the country have been doing better than urban parts.The noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, was concerned about unemployment in Wales. With his great knowledge of Wales, I take note of what he said. I am not sure how the figures in Wales compare with those in the rest of the UK. Both the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred to affordable housing. The Government have recognised that there are special needs in rural areas for affordable housing. We have made various arrangements. There is an exceptions policy which allows planning permission for social housing on land which would not normally be given development approval. The Housing Corporation's rural programme targets small communities. Between 1989-90 and 1995-96 over 12,000 new rural social homes were approved. Small rural settlements will be exempted from the purchase grant scheme giving housing association tenants the right to buy. So those are all the things that are being done from the point of view of affordable housing.
Again, I shall take note of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, about the particular problems experienced by the housing market in Wales, resulting from holiday homes and second homes, and his concerns about health services. I shall certainly draw them to the attention of my ministerial colleagues who have responsibility for Wales.
Some areas are experiencing major changes in the economic sectors upon which they have previously relied heavily. The published unemployment figures can, as my noble friend Lord Shuttleworth suggested, disguise local pockets of high unemployment as well as problems of part-time employment and low rates of seasonal work.
The beauty of the countryside and all that lives and moves within it is important to everyone, both urban and rural dwellers alike. That is why we published the White Paper in 1995 entitled Rural England--A nation committed to a living countryside. It was a comprehensive review of the countryside, the like of which had never been undertaken before. It tried to depict but not to dictate the way in which the countryside was likely to go. It was a major work. It was well received. I am glad to say that I see the noble Lord, Lord Carter, nodding assent. I think that he agrees with me. It was a very much better document than the one the Labour Party produced, but that is to be expected. It re-emphasised--we must never forget this--that the countryside is and always has been a place of work. That is what the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said. She said that it must not be a dormitory; it must be a place of work. She said that it must not be a theme park. She is right. She always makes the most fascinating of speeches. I was glad to hear her stand up for the right of rural needs and views to be heard. I was glad to hear her support of fox hunting. She said that 16,000 jobs are created in it and 150,000 other jobs depend upon it.
Those jobs are carried out by good, respectable, honest people. It is good, respectable work, and, as such, the noble Baroness was right to draw attention to the fact that if hunting and what happens on grouse moors in Yorkshire and Scotland were to go, that would have a great impact on employment in the countryside. The only thing I found surprising about her speech was her conclusion when she said, "What we want is a government to change all that". She was probably referring to another part of her speech, but she was misguided in that respect and I think she was misguided--if I may say so--in the totality as well.
The White Paper proposed some direct government action including that relating to village shops. One sad fact is that the motor car tends to draw people away from villages to do their shopping in towns, and that has resulted in the loss of the village shop which, apart from its function as a purveyor of goods, is an important social centre. It is in order to encourage the continuation of a village shop that in the Local Government and Rating Bill we are introducing a 50 per cent. relief for single village shops in settlements of fewer than 3,000 people.
Indeed today I went to present a Calor Gas Rural Sponsorship Award which recognised the huge input of voluntary work into the countryside. Indeed, one of the awards I gave was to an organisation which was actually campaigning against the Government and planning and development. So noble Lords can see that we are very broadminded and we give people awards for campaigning against the Government. It went to that particular person, but I can assure noble Lords opposite that it would not go to them. They will have to do a lot better before they can get an award.
The noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, showed--if I might say so--shadows of old Labour, but she was so right about the protestors. Of course bypasses are necessary. She described where her sister lives with all the vehicles rumbling through. Of course those places need bypasses. They are wanted by some and not wanted by others. There is a proper democratic process which should be gone through. When that has been gone through, it is right that the conclusion is pursued properly. Those people who disrupt such processes think that they are doing so for democratic reasons. They are not doing it for democratic reasons at all. It is entirely selfish and causes enormous expense. It disregards the democratic process and creates huge problems for the police and huge expense for the people in the locality. There is nothing to praise such people about for that.
The role of British farming as a direct employer in the countryside may be diminishing; nevertheless, it is a highly successful industry upon which many depend--consumers, food processors, suppliers of agricultural machinery and equipment, and others. I was concerned that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden--here we go again--said that there should be a national minimum wage. Well, that would put the frighteners on anyone. I hope that noble Lords will not do that. The party opposite says very little about what it is going to do, but occasionally little bits of iceberg appear from out of the water. They cover a huge great iceberg underneath.
I can assure noble Lords that as the general election draws near we shall expose what is underneath the iceberg a little more than has been done so far. When the noble Lord says things like that, it puts the wind up me as it does anyone else who thinks about these things.Any reform of the CAP must take account of the fact that agriculture is important. We need a CAP which ensures that agriculture in member states will be competitive in world markets. The CAP was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, my noble friend Lord Selborne and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who was concerned to see the CAP change. I agree with much of what he said other than his remark that this Government are doing nothing and we must wait for the next government after May to do something about it. I am bound to say that the noble Lord is totally wrong over that because it is this Government who have been pursuing changes in the CAP time and time again year after year and trying to encourage our partners to do so.
For the past 23 years we have played a leading role in the Agriculture Council, invariably seeking constructive solutions to the many problems which arise. If, in his wildest dreams, the noble Lord thinks he may be on this side of the House shortly--it may be a dream to him but it is a nightmare to others--I can assure him his real problem will be trying to get his European partners to change. However, I agree with him that we should decouple from the price support mechanisms the cash that is required for social needs in the less favoured areas.
It is worth thinking about what will happen in the next few years. In 1960 there were 3,000 million people in the world. There are now 6,000 million. In another 25 years, the number will have doubled to 12,000 million. All those people will have to have food, water and houses and will have to be clothed and have jobs to do. Furthermore, we must preserve the countryside, the bugs, the beetles, sites of special scientific interest, the rain forests, the jungles and so forth. The pressures on the environment will be colossal. I respect the desire of my noble friend Lord Clanwilliam for organic farming and say to him only that of course it has a place in the totality of things. However, he must consider how it will fit in with those alarming figures.
The CAP must encompass not only agriculture but also the economic and environmental needs of rural areas. I attended the conference referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, at which there was a declaration covering a reformed, simplified, more decentralised CAP. We are a long way from having that accepted by Europe as a whole, but it reflected the Government's views.
The diversification of businesses in rural areas means that the countryside is less vulnerable to changes which might affect one particular sector. The noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, referred to the need for infrastructure development in Scottish rural areas. A Scottish Rural Partnership Fund came into effect on 1st April 1996 with £4.2 million for 1997-98, £1.5 million of which is new money. Furthermore, £1.2 million is offered as challenge funding to support innovative projects drawn
by local people which find new ways to tackle particular local problems, and £500,000 of the fund is available to local partnerships.The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, referred to the taxation of rural business. That is a matter for Treasury Ministers. I understand that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote to the Country Landowners' Association on 22nd November explaining why this is a matter of fundamental tax policy and that so long as the rural business unit concept envisages landlords of rural estates receiving more generous tax treatment than other landlords, the message from the Treasury will be likely to remain in the negative.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, referred to the closure of village schools. The number of closures of small village schools has been of concern to many people. The Secretary of State for Education, while pressing education authorities to be cost effective, accepts the need to preserve the accessibility of schooling for young children.
There are many other matters upon which I should have liked to divest my views, but time runs against us all. I merely thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for having introduced the debate, giving your Lordships time to discuss the matter. Perhaps I may tell him not to get too excited because he has a long, long way to go.
8.53 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As always, they have clearly demonstrated the range of expertise and experience of countryside matters which your Lordships' House possesses.
All speakers, perhaps with the exception of the Minister, largely avoided polemics. I shall be charitable and presume that the noble Earl knows something that we do not know about the date of the election. Apart from the polemics, I greatly enjoyed the noble Earl's contribution. I could not help reflecting that if he was like that before he had his dinner I was jolly glad that he was not winding up after a convivial evening.
I repeat my thanks to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
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