English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Since that debate in Committee, the Government have brought in the very long-awaited land use framework, which provides some guidance at the big scale, but how will it be delivered and how will we get the focus on feeding local areas? We desperately need to do this as well as thinking about environment, flood prevention and all these things. We have to see rural areas and cities and towns as a complete network, a complete system. We will have to direct attention to these new bodies being created or there is a real risk that they will be overlooked and, as a result, everyone will suffer, not just people in rural areas.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 310 under the welcome leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I declare an interest as a retired participant in a mixed family farming business in Somerset.

In Committee I spoke at length on the very real need for some form of rural-proofing or rural duty, preferably even a rural commissioner, where a strategic or combined authority had any rural communities within its boundaries. I will not repeat what I said then or speak at such length, noble Lords will be glad to hear, but things are very different in rural England compared with urban England. The needs are different and the solutions to those needs are different. Without some form of rural thinking at the seat of power, rural communities will inevitably lose out if they are poor and need special attention or, at the other end of the scale, if they are enterprising and need help to fulfil their potential.

Rural communities have lost out for decades from not having any clout, rural-proofing or consideration at the various seats of power. We touched on these issues in Committee; some have been raised already in this debate. First, houses are more expensive and wages are lower. In many rural communities there are no houses to rent or buy unless you are very rich. It is a serious rural problem.

Secondly, on transport, how do you get your children to the doctor, to local football training or to the local HE college without an extra car in your family? The answer is that you cannot. Local political administrative thinking needs to take this into account.

Thirdly, on energy, most rural houses have poor insulation and very rarely is mains gas available, so you have to have more costly forms of heating—oil, electricity or bottled gas. The Government have recognised this in recent days, and we are very grateful for that.

Fourthly—this is the most convincing one—there is higher council tax. Central government support for rural local authorities, despite delivery of services being more expensive in rural areas—is 40% less per head compared with the towns, which is why rural council tax is on average 20% higher per head than in urban areas and is about to get worse. This is caused by the fact that there has never been a proper rural voice in central government, which supports the point we are making.

These are some of the shortcomings that rural dwellers have to suffer, but there are also missed opportunities. For instance, in delivering training for entrepreneurs, how do you reach out to the various different businesses that exist many miles distant from each other? How do you set about pumping new life into the various market towns in your area? It is amazing what can be done in this respect by, for example, finding a business theme that can inspire visitors and customers. For instance, there are food festivals at Padstow, which is near me in Cornwall, and at Bridport in Dorset; there are culture festivals, such as those at Hay-on-Wye, Broad Chalke or Cheltenham; or those on art, as at St Ives, again in Cornwall. But there could be garden attractions, nature tours, beer festivals or a major town attraction to attract footfall in its various forms.

I remember visiting, a few years ago now, a small town in central France that had a massive sports centre with a swimming pool, ice rink, gymnasium and climbing walls—note the plural. As a result, every day the town and shops were humming with families who had come from far and wide. The possibilities are endless, but you need a rural focus to help kick-start them and provide some pump-priming funding. In essence, this issue has at its heart both deprivation and need, as well as opportunity and possibilities. It should not be ignored.

Finally, I remind noble Lords that the Bill is called the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. What we are trying to do here is to empower rural communities. I would be appalled if we missed this opportunity to empower our rural communities, when it is such an easy change to make.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 310 from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, while also supporting all the other amendments in this group. I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and of the Town and Country Planning Association, and as an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Amendment 310 would create a duty for strategic authorities to consider the needs of rural communities. It specifically covers land use, development of land and regeneration, housing, employment, health and well-being. Several noble Lords have made the point that there are quite different considerations for these functions when addressing rural needs as opposed to those of urban communities. For example, on housing, many rural areas will see competition for available accommodation from those commuting from elsewhere, from rightsizing retirees and, in many places, from second-home buyers and those letting on a short-term basis of the Airbnb variety. Yet, on average, social housing accounts for just 11% of homes in rural locations, compared with 17% in the country as a whole. Younger people brought up in the locality, including those badly needed for public and private sector jobs, are forced to move away to find somewhere affordable.

On land use, there will be severe constraints on rural areas including green belts, areas of outstanding natural beauty—now known as national landscapes—and local constraints. But urban-rural differences apply to opportunities as well, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said. For example, rural exception sites allow development that would not be permitted elsewhere, and there are opportunities to work with major landowners.

In many respects, there are substantial differences that require different policies and actions for rural communities, yet these communities are likely to comprise only a small fraction of the total population of a mayoralty or combined authority, and pressing priorities from the majority urban areas may drown out the rural voice. A duty to take on board the needs of rural communities would counter this imbalance.

Of course, the mayor or the combined authority could take a far-sighted approach to embracing the rural agenda for their area without any legislative prompting, but this is by no means guaranteed. The amendment provides the safety net that would make sure that rural issues are not neglected in places where towns and cities dominate. I strongly support the amendment.