Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Mallalieu Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register.

I have just one ask of the Minister when she comes to reply. Can she give an assurance that this legislation will apply equally to urban areas of deprivation and to what is arguably the area where levelling up is most needed and has historically been neglected: England’s deprived rural communities?

The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, has said some of it; I will add a little. Average earnings from rural jobs are 7% lower than those in urban areas, excluding London. Rural residents pay on average nearly a fifth more in council tax than urban residents. Urban areas receive over 60% more per head in settlement funding assessment grants. Those in rural areas pay more, receive fewer services and on average earn less. Rural poverty, as many of us know, is easily overlooked because the village looks idyllic, but rural homelessness, which is less visible, means a rusty caravan hidden behind the farm buildings while the second homes and holiday lets stand empty. There are fewer services, limited jobs that are often seasonal, limited transport and training opportunities and limited social and affordable housing to rent or buy, if there is any at all, and there are food banks, just as in urban areas. Because of this, it is not just those who live in rural areas who currently miss out. We all do, because rural areas are 18% less productive than the national average. However, if that gap was closed by levelling up and regeneration, £43 billion would be added to England’s earnings alone and we would all benefit.

The overwhelming case for rural regeneration has so far been missed, historically and politically. I suspect that the party opposite has often taken rural votes for granted, while on our side of the House we have focused on our urban heartlands. However, in the past, when money has been given to a region, too often it has been sucked into the urban part of it and away from the rural, which is my fear for the Bill. Yet much of what needs to be done does not require huge tranches of government money. It requires the will to encourage innovation and enterprise, and to encourage more private money to go into such developments.

The Government have been given a whole range of templates about how to do this. The Rural Economy Select Committee, which the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, chaired although he modestly did not mention that, the report published last year from the all-party group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, and Mr Julian Sturdy, Levelling Up the Rural Economy, and the work of the Rural Coalition, headed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, also last year, all did the preparation and the research and gave the blueprint for what needs doing.

Ironically, the timing is right because the opportunity for people to live good and productive lives in the countryside is possible and could be made a reality because of the digital revolution. Again, I say that it needs innovation and enterprise to be encouraged and for rural areas not to be allowed to fall behind. That means that 5G, when it comes, must go into the rural areas and not be left behind. If it is, businesses will decide to go elsewhere because they will not be adequately connected. It needs changes to the planning rules to increase homes both to rent and to buy. It needs workplaces close to where people live, and above all it needs a Government to focus on the needs of those left-behind areas. The danger in the Bill as currently drafted is that these areas are very likely to be yet again overlooked. I ask for an assurance from the Minister that this will not happen if she can help it.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Mallalieu Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, brought us passion and poetry, and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, is going to bring formidable financial expertise. I welcome and congratulate them both. I would like to focus on rural communities, for which I had hoped to see more in the gracious Speech but sadly did not. In doing so, I remind the House of my rural and farming interests as set out in the register.

As we know, farming, which of course manages and maintains our landscapes which we all revere, faces a seismic change with a reduction in farm support, the need to find new markets, new overseas competition, potential additional cost burdens imposed by climate change and animal welfare legislation. All of that is against a background of reduced profitability and an ageing population. The threat to the future of the traditional family farm, especially in the uplands, has never been greater and without a government focus to help keep them in business, and help with increasing productivity and diversification, we are going to end up with industrial-scale farming in their place.

We are getting a planning Bill. More houses are clearly needed and some of them have to be built in rural areas. But if we are not to destroy rural communities and their different, special way of life, then that Bill has to show sensitivity to local decisions. New housing in small communities can work well when local people have the final say on where it is to go, how it looks, and if it has a meaningful, affordable element—but not when 200 executive homes are tacked on to a village with no additional infrastructure, adequate transport or suitable roads.

Almost exactly two years ago, a Select Committee of this House, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, and containing a number of others, including myself, who have spoken today or are about to speak, published a report on the rural economy. That report recognised the changes and challenges, which are now a reality, but also the opportunities by which the digital revolution, properly encouraged, could transform the rural economy, reverse years of underperformance under successive Governments and improve the quality of life for the nation as a whole. We saw how that could happen ourselves in places where local authorities, planners and a number of rural-minded LEPs—of which there were, sadly, few—could help bring about dynamic new enterprises with locals and newcomers working together yet retain that special and different sense of community.

Our central recommendation was for an urgent, effective rural strategy underpinned by better rural proofing of legislation and delivered through a locally based approach. Two years have gone by and the response so far has been disappointing, to put it very gently. I will give four examples.

In late 2019, the government promised £5 billion for full-fibre broadband everywhere by 2025. In spring 2020, those figures were cut to £1.2 billion and 85%, with no commitment to bring rural areas up to urban standards.

Fourteen recommendations related to the much-hyped UK shared prosperity fund, which was promised way back in 2017. A full consultation was promised in 2018, but no full open consultation has yet taken place.

The first report by Defra on rural proofing has been published, but it deserves no more than three out of 10. In a number of Bills, no such exercise appears to have been performed at all. In others, simply adding the words “and rural” seems to have been considered enough. This was clearly set out in a letter dated 17 March from the noble Lord, Lord McFall, to the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, in the respective jobs they then occupied.

Above all, our most central and urgent recommendation for a comprehensive rural strategy was rejected by the Government. Instead, they said that they would be producing their own vision. Two years later, we are still waiting, and I cannot see any sign of it in the gracious Speech. Can the Minister tell us when rural Britain can expect to see that vision become a reality?

UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Baroness Mallalieu Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

The design of the fund will be made public at a later date. I know of the interest that there is in green issues, and of course they are a critical part of what the Government are seeking to do.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

Given that the left-behind places, which the Government promised to help in the December general election, are likely to be the hardest hit in the current economic crisis, will the Minister assure us that the Government will have this fund ready for operation by 1 January 2021, when EU structural funds end?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I refer the noble Baroness to my previous answer. I cannot make a specific commitment on the timing but we obviously realise that, with the pandemic, it is important to proceed as fast as possible.