Local Government Funding: Rural Areas

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

Historically, most of the Labour party’s support has come from the urban heartlands. That may have led it, when in government, always to use concentrated deprivation as an excuse for moving funds to those urban heartlands, at the expense of rural areas. As I said at the outset, it is important to bear in mind that people in rural areas are not part of an idyll. They are not richer; indeed, on average they are poorer.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and on the splendid campaign he has fought on behalf of our rural communities.

May I take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray)? Some of us were here throughout the long, long twilight years during which the Labour Government brutally transferred money from rural areas to urban areas. As a result of that, Shropshire will receive £325.67 this year, whereas Westminster, where we are sitting tonight, will receive £715.88. However, the settlement would reduce Westminster’s funding by 13.9% and Shropshire’s by a significant 24%.

As my hon. Friend says, delivering services in rural areas is expensive. Under the last Government we made some improvements, and we should be grateful for that, but the settlement is still extraordinarily unfair. We are exposed as a party. We are now the party of rural England, and we have to put this right. We do not want to ask for a single penny more from the Treasury; we just want a fair settlement within the envelope.

[Graham Stuart]

I agree with everything that my right hon. Friend has said, except one thing. We are not just the party of rural England. We are the party of the whole United Kingdom, and what we want, what we have pressed for, and what this campaign has always sought on a cross-party basis, is a system that is fair to all.