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4.21 pm

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the chance to consider these issues in a debate. Whatever the solution is to the problems facing our rural areas, I am sure that it is not subsidy. Subsidy saps the strength of whatever community it is given to because it distorts priorities. In the end, communities become totally reliant on and subservient to those providing the subsidy, who in this case would be town dwellers. If we want anything for our rural communities, we ought to want them to be independent and to have their own voice in their own affairs. So we have to resist the siren voices that say that rural post offices, housing and services should be subsidised and that people in the countryside should get more than is available to those living in towns because it costs more to live in the country.

There are immense virtues to living in the country not enjoyed by people stuck in towns. I live half my life in a two-up, two-down in Battersea. One has to balance these things. To live on subsidy would be a dangerous thing, particularly when there is a good alternative. If we have a vision of countryside communities as being much more than they are today, in charge of what they do and where they are going—I am a great believer in localism because much of virtue to rural communities can be seen down that road—we must give local people power over what happens in their locality. We must ask them to bear their true costs, not to be subsidised, but to choose with the money at their disposal what they receive and on what terms, balancing what is worse than it would be if they were in town and what they spend their money on. That is a reasonable quid pro quo to go with independence.

To make that possible, we need to provide a decent revenue stream. That cannot be done just by upping council tax, which has been pushed to its limit anyway. If you want rural communities to be independent and to pay for themselves, you have to give them access to a decent revenue stream, and the best proposal I have seen yet for that comes from Dr Tim Leunig of the LSE in his pamphlet In My Back Yard. It suggests that local communities should take charge of planning in their areas and choose where development should take place. If you took a village such as mine, Hawkley in Hampshire, which comprises about 100 households scattered about, and allowed them to choose where one new dwelling each year was to be situated, I think that the local people would be able to do a pretty good deal with the landowners to secure a plot for perhaps £100,000 and, in our particular area, sell it on for something close to £1 million. That is a very large sum of money for expanding the village at the rate of one house a year and would give the community a great deal of resource.

That applies not only in the affluent south; any village, anywhere, could do so. It might not be possible just to add a village house in some of the poorer parts of the country, but they could choose to use part of the surrounding countryside to add a big house. There is an enormous shortage of big houses in this country; bids for them reach the most extraordinary prices. If we allow villages the choice of what they build under their allowance, wherever they are in the country they will have access to a very large sum of money for selling their birthright—not our birthright—in a way which pleases and benefits them; or, indeed, if they choose not to do it, bearing the additional costs of living in a rural location.

We can give the communities the responsibility and then expect them to take charge of their own destinies. That may seem hard but it is much better that rural communities should decide what happens, how they develop and whether they wish to expand enough to afford a new shop or keep the village school viable. If the communities are in charge and get the benefits flowing through them, we will have a much more vibrant, assertive and confident countryside than has been displayed today. Frankly, I have found most of the speeches fairly defeatist and sorry. We have all been looking at the misery of living in the countryside. It ought not to be that; it ought to be a pleasure and a privilege.

4.26 pm

Lord Dear: My Lords, I declare interests as a member of both the Countryside Alliance and of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, and as a trustee of the Country Trust, a charity which introduces children from deprived inner-city areas into the life and workings of the country.

The truth is that probably only during the Great War and the Second World War has this nation really valued its own countryside and has the rural economy flourished. From behind the plethora of soft-focus television nature programmes, quite recently the truth was finally exposed in a programme called “The Lie of the Land”, brilliantly presented by Molly Dineen, which graphically portrayed the plight of modern dairy farming.

There remains a massive ignorance and even a lack of interest in the problems of rural areas. As social conditions change, so, too, of course, will farming and country life. But if that way of life is not to be destroyed by harsh and unfair policies and economics, an infrastructure of rural services is vital to its survival. For that reason I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on securing this debate and I am grateful for the opportunity to participate.

Rural services are a crucial component of life in rural areas, particularly in the more remote regions. Those services should provide a network that sustains and consolidates the community. They are, in effect, the reinforcing rods of rural life, without which the whole edifice will come tumbling down. Yet metropolitan areas receive on average 20 per cent more SSA—standard spending assessment—funding per capita than rural areas, and in rural areas council taxes are higher for a lower level of public services.

Staying with the generality, the sparsity of rural communities, which has already been mentioned several times in the debate, in comparison to urban ones puts them at a further disadvantage in any comparison of per capita public investment. For example, a single urban police station may be able to protect 100,000 people within a five-minute call-out time. In a rural area, that same number of people will be very widely dispersed and it will probably take 40 minutes or so to reach them. The point of the example is that many forms of services in rural areas require far greater per capita investment to provide anything like an equivalent service to that given in an urban community. At present, investment for rural people per capita is invariably lower.

Today I want to touch on only two issues that affect rural life, transport and retail outlets. I shall not go into the current vexed question of the closure of post offices. First, I shall use some statistics, in much the same way as has been done already to great effect by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. Seventy per cent of rural parishes do not have a general store. Four thousand rural banks have closed in the past 10 years, and another 4,000 are expected to close in the next five years—a decline of one-quarter. Some 53 per cent of all rural settlements do not have a public house. Around 8,500 independent grocery stores have closed within the past five years, most of them in rural areas.

The causes for such a seismic and rapid change are of course conjectural, but I suggest that the effects are partly due to domestic migration. First of all there is the immigration into an area by the retired, the wealthy and second-homeowners, all of whom can well afford to travel to the nearest town and shop in bigger retail outlets. Second-homeowners, as I often observe in my own village, often spend little or nothing locally but bring all that they need with them from the city, where it is cheaper. To arrive with a box of groceries and a full tank of petrol is commonplace. Secondly, there is the emigration out by the young for education and employment. That changes the overall demographic base, which in turn is bound to affect trading patterns.

I turn to rural transport, which is perhaps even more important. The first point to make here is that transport infrastructure needs to be created with reference to the social and economic needs of the local areas, not simply around the needs of visitors to the area. Given the paucity of rural services and facilities and the dispersed nature that exists, a significant minority of residents, especially those without a car, face real hardship and social exclusion. Car ownership and use in rural areas is high: 40 per cent of rural households have two or more cars, and three-quarters of all their journeys are made by car. For the 16 per cent of rural residents who do not have a car at all, however, hardship is acute.

National indicators of deprivation used by the Government are urban-based. They do not always reflect the picture in rural areas, and they can distort the reality. For example, current indicators of deprivation include car ownership as a measure of wealth, but in rural areas that is not appropriate when many poor families are forced to own a car to enable them to travel. Rural residents travel on average 40 per cent further than urban residents each week, because facilities and services are likely to be further away. That is because 75 per cent of villages do not have a daily bus service. Rural motorists drive further to buy their petrol, because 600 filling stations are closing each year and the closures are leaving some households in rural areas 30 miles or more away from their filling stations. When eventually they get there, they are necessarily charged more for fuel because rural prices are higher.

What can be done? Local authorities could and should undertake accessibility planning to examine what access different communities have to a range of services. Local transport plans should consider the potential for bringing services to rural settlements, as well as looking for improved public transport. There is a need for more flexibility for the type of transport that is provided for more responsive services, such as bespoke minibus routes, for individuals in remote areas. Providers of healthcare and other services also need to pay more attention to the needs of rural areas. This is an important issue, going to the heart of many of the current problems. Appropriate planning of transport schemes in rural areas can rejuvenate communities and provide an essential lifeline. The obverse of that coin is that without it, communities will fail.

Not all the examples I have cited are the responsibility of Government—of course not. Many are the result of market forces. But we all have a responsibility to ensure that the rural way of life and the rural economy is not allowed to wither by default, a responsibility to see that one of this country’s most prized assets continues as a vibrant way of life; and a responsibility to ensure that the emigration to the towns does not cause irreparable damage.

4.35 pm

Lord Redesdale: My Lords, one of the great joys of winding up a debate is being able to throw away half your notes when you agree with a previous speaker and do not have to cover the same ground. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, spoke about immigration and emigration to the countryside through second homes. We will see that tomorrow, with the great clogging of the roads as everybody disappears to their second home for half-term, and London will be emptied.

One of the problems with this debate is the cornucopia of issues on problems in rural society. We can direct many of them at the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who I am sure will give a forthright and direct response, as always. It would be easy to say that many of the problems in rural society are the result of government mismanagement, when instead they are down to simple economics—wealth creation, people in cities moving to the countryside and the fact that much of the primary production of agriculture and the price of produce is being driven down by the supermarkets.

Another problem is that such a small minority of the population lives in the countryside. The 2001 census showed that only 19 per cent of the population lives in the countryside. Many of the rural services are in decline because of the shrinkage in the number of people living in the local area. I was looking through local village historical records. At one time, more than 200 children from Rochester and the surrounding area turned up for the local picnic. Five years ago, there was only one child of school age in the same village. It is a simple problem which has been exacerbated by the fact that the property price is based on second home ownership prices rather than local need or income. In addition, there has been an influx of older people; as people become older and lose the use of their vehicle, they have major problems. In an area such as mine, which is one of the remotest parts of the country, you need a car to get around. If you cannot, you have to sell your house and move to somewhere which has better access to local services.

Many noble Lords pointed out that the countryside has many problems. There is great wealth in the countryside too, and very vibrant communities. To paint a picture of depression and economic hardship would be wrong, but the problem is hidden. I have worked with young people from YMCAs in Yeovil and other parts of the country who paint a picture which is very close to the urban situation faced by their contemporaries—homelessness, drug abuse and lack of access to social services. But because their numbers are fewer and they are spread out over larger areas, the problem is largely hidden.

I was particularly taken with the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and his wonderful Dibleyesque view of the church. With the ordination of women and the number of women vicars we have in Northumberland, there has been a great resurgence of interest in the Church of England. Our local church was packed at Christmas carol time—not at all other times of the year, of course—but it showed the value of all the churches in rural areas as a social amenity. I very much welcome the work that the church is undertaking, especially with regard to suicide in the agricultural community. Farmers have one of the highest rates of suicide of any profession in the country. This must be due not just to economic hardship but also to the fact that the industrialisation and mechanisation of farming have meant that it is possible to maintain only one, perhaps two, people in work on a farm, thereby making it a very isolated existence.

The Minister will be glad to hear that I have only two questions for him. I left them until last, thinking that I would then sit down and give other speakers extra minutes. The first is about squirrels, which the Minister knew I could not avoid. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, initiated the debate, it would be wrong of me not to raise the issue. I run the Red Squirrel Protection Partnership, which is trying to kill grey squirrels to protect red squirrels, but that is not the issue. We have recently come across a problem that is affecting a large number of wildlife trusts and those who are trying to conserve different species of animals. With the formation of Natural England and the new grant schemes, it is almost impossible to raise money for a single, easy objective of protecting a particular species without having to fit it in with a multiple approach in the grant regime. One has to fit it in, for example, with tourism or agriculture. If one fails to do that, to fit a square peg into a round hole, one has real difficulties. Will the department undertake some research? I know that many wildlife trusts and many of those who are attempting to conserve single species of animal are having a problem. It is a growing problem which, if it is not resolved, will within a couple of years do a great deal of damage to conservation in this country.

The second question relates to the provision of health services in rural areas. I could make an extremely long speech about that. The issue was brought home to me by the problems faced by a friend who had difficulty with her pregnancy. I live on the border with Scotland. As it was a difficult pregnancy, the ambulance in which she was travelling was diverted from Hexham, 26 miles away. She was told that she would have to wait until they could find her a bed either in Newcastle, Darlington or Sunderland. That is an enormous distance to travel, especially given the situation that she was in. I understand from the NHS that the provision of excellent, centralised care can help, especially in urban areas, to prevent many complications. The problem is that this policy of centralisation is being led by those people who live in urban areas and does not take into account the travel time required to reach those centralised systems. I shall present the Minister with a paper entitled Ensuring Equitable Access to Health and Social Care for Rural and Remote Communities, which was written by a team of experts in rural health. It outlines some of the problems. I hope that his department will feed back to the NHS some of the difficulties that rural communities have identified. It is a cross-departmental issue that should be looked at.

4.44 pm

Baroness Byford: My Lords, this debate, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has reflected its participants’ great knowledge of the difficulties and opportunities faced by those who live in rural areas. I congratulate him on securing it at the 11th hour before we leave for a week’s break.

Much as I would like to spend quite a bit of the time available to me speaking on farming and farming-related matters—I should again remind the House of my family farming background and interest—those issues have been well covered by colleagues. I should like to touch on them further but this debate goes wider than agriculture and deals with the state of the countryside and the way things are today.

I have to say to my noble friend Lord Lucas that I do not think that any of us is calling for extra subsidies. We are reflecting that as things currently stand, rural people are disadvantaged in the system, in local and national government spending across the public services, including policing, health provision, housing, medical facilities, IT infrastructure, transport and schools. The 2004 report by SPARSE—the Sparsity Partnership for Authorities Delivering Rural Services—highlighted the disparity between council tax rates and the delivery of local services in rural England. Metropolitan areas receive 20 per cent more on their SSA than do rural areas, while rural areas have fewer public services to enjoy.

There have been ongoing reductions in the availability of key services such as banks, job centres, petrol stations and pubs, to say nothing of post offices. Last week we had it confirmed that another 2,500 post offices will be compulsorily closed, and others may close as well. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how many of the 2,500 compulsory closures are in rural areas. Last week I asked how many of those 4,000 free ATM units will be fitted in rural areas but I did not get an answer.

The Federation of Small Businesses estimates that approximately 26,000 of its members are based in rural wards. Its research demonstrates that despite the important role that small businesses play in the rural economy, poor delivery of service support remains the key barrier to growth. In his review, the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, concluded that too many government agencies are involved in delivering services to the countryside and that there is a lack of co-ordination between them.

Farming is a business like any other business and it depends on local services. Industry has gone through major changes, moving from a system of food subsidies to one of highly defined environmental requirements. The change has had a major impact on many farmers, but it is Defra’s failure to achieve delivery of the new payments on time that has been catastrophic. Many noble Lords have referred to that. Some 22,000 single farm payments for 2005 are still in dispute and those farmers are worse off now than they were a year ago. That was confirmed by the Minister last week. The situation is unlikely to improve for them until 2008. I hope that we hear something slightly more positive in his response today.

My noble friend the Duke of Montrose spoke particularly of farming issues and issues related to hill-farming. Clearly many farmers leave the hillside, and their future needs specific consideration. Other noble Lords referred to systematic maladministration—and I shall not add to that. In the past few years since Defra was formed, 750 general and local statutory instruments have been introduced. I asked last week how many had been updated and how many revoked and the Minister told me in a Written Answer that the department,

“does not have a central database of revoked regulations or which identifies those that are updated regulations, and collation of the data requested would involve disproportionate cost”.—[Official Report, 15/5/07; col. WA20.]

I trust the Minister—which will be my folly at some stage. If these promises of deregulation and outcomes cannot be resolved, there is no way in which we can hold the Government to account, and that needs addressing.

We have heard many Statements this week, and we have heard that the Government intend to amend the planning laws to enable householders to put up porches and greenhouses, erect wind turbines and install solar panels without formal permission. That is good news. However, I am concerned that some big national projects will be approved of only by the new planning permission that has been set up, which is another unelected quango with responsibility for major development.

Living in the countryside is many people’s seventh heaven. When one is in full possession of one’s faculties and has sufficient earning capacity, it is indeed that. However, as we have heard, if one is elderly, ill or earning below the average wage, one can often feel that it is more like the other place—and I do not mean the Commons. The decline in government support for the rapidly rising cost of disability, nursing, care homes, day centres and adult learning has hit those living in the countryside the hardest. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, the fact that you may have been born in the countryside does not help. That is where you were born and where you have lived; you have not moved there.

Infants and toddlers do not need much outside the home but society demands that they should be vaccinated and counsels medical help with most ailments. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer single GP practices and the groups tend to put themselves in centres of population. Therefore, the rural mum has to take her youngster to town and pay to park on the street, if she can find somewhere to park.

As rural children grow up, only a few are able to attend a school within walking distance. That means their parents are faced with an extra dilemma. Should they let them walk or will they take them to school by car? After school comes higher education. For the rural family that means more transport. As we heard, bus services are often inadequate and the result is often a choice between acquiring a car for the young person or seeing them move away. In my opinion that is to be regretted because people from one age group are migrating to the countryside while young people are leaving. One of the biggest problems for young people trying to find a job in rural areas is that of housing, as other noble Lords said. Broadband is another key factor in the ability of young people to get jobs in such areas.

Most villages levy a parish precept—this has not been mentioned so far—on top of the universal council charges to fund the work of the parish council, which includes litter removal, street lighting and grass cutting. The precept rises depending on the size of the village, but a rate of £1 per week for a band D house is fairly common. This amounts to a large extra cost by the end of someone’s lifetime.

I draw the Minister’s attention to page 85 of the departmental report, which highlights certain issues. There is slippage against the rural productivity and services public service agreement target, mainly because Defra does not have the levers to ensure delivery. Secondly, there is a significant lag in gathering data to monitor progress on Defra’s rural PSA target. Thirdly, the Commission for Rural Communities has expressed concern over the availability of data to enable government departments to report the rural impact of policy decisions. I urge the Minister to respond to that.

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