Rural Communities

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

We now come to the next debate. Hon. Members who were not present for the previous debate will be unaware that the Chairman of Ways and Means has granted me the power to impose time limits on speeches. I notice that a significant number of hon. Members are present for the debate. Seven have already indicated to Mr Speaker that they want to participate, and others who have not written in may well want to contribute. I will therefore say now that I am imposing a six-minute time limit on all speeches, other than of course the speech of the hon. Member introducing the debate. That will carry with it a penalty of one minute per intervention for the first two interventions. Hon. Members can do the maths and work out how many of their colleagues are likely to be able to participate in the debate on that basis. It will be the intention of my successor in the Chair to start to call those on the Front Benches for the winding-up speeches not less than 25 minutes before the end of the debate.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. The reason for the slight pause is that I was looking to see who had risen to speak. [Interruption.] Okay, please sit down. Ten Members are seeking to speak, and others may seek to intervene. That being so, and despite the fact that I announced at the start of the debate that I wanted to curtail speeches to six minutes, I will actually curtail them to five minutes. That will allow the Front-Bench spokesmen to start at about 12.5 pm. It will also allow a little injury time for interventions. For those who came in slightly late, let me explain that the system is exactly as it is in the main Chamber. For each of the first two interventions, there will be an extra minute, so a five-minute speech could turn into a seven-minute speech. We do not have the same advanced technology as we do in the main Chamber, so I will indicate when Members have one minute left to go by ringing the bell in front of me.

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[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fine point. I had a hugely confusing conversation with the Welsh Government, some time ago, about historic and listed buildings being free of VAT. The conclusion, after 20 minutes of discussion, was agreement that they were free of VAT—but only for new build. Given that we were talking about historic and listed properties, the idea of building them anew seemed somewhat peculiar to me, to say the least.

I will conclude by saying that we have social housing in Wales, as elsewhere. Social housing is extremely valuable, but often it is of the wrong type, and in the wrong place. The ability of social landlords and local authorities to let houses in rural areas has been severely curtailed. In many villages in my area, social housing has been sold. It is not available. The proposed changes in housing benefit are unlikely to help. More people under 35 will be looking for houses in multiple occupation, of which we have few in rural Wales.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. Before we proceed, I now have a fairly definitive list of hon. Members who have applied to speak. Although it is exceptional to do so, it may help if I give the names of those people, so that hon. Members not on the list may consider whether to intervene. From the Government Benches, in the order of application, speakers will be Mr Rory Stewart, Caroline Nokes, Sheryll Murray, Glyn Davies, Roger Williams and Neil Parish; and now that Mr Hywel Williams has spoken the only name I have from the Opposition Benches is Mr Ian Paisley. Any hon. Member not on the list has not so far indicated a wish to speak.

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[Sheryll Murray]

The hon. Gentleman will accept that that is not a trend that has just begun under this Government. It started in the early 2000s, when we saw petrol stations in rural areas haemorrhage, which demonstrates that there was very little support for our rural communities under the last Government.

Public transport is weak in South East Cornwall; there are very few buses and there is little access to the railways. It is clear that the majority of the rural population drive, but it is also important to have some kind of alternative. Everyone has periods when they cannot drive, whether because of age, medical reasons or the car has broken down. Unlike in towns, where the local GP’s surgery can be a few hundred metres from someone’s home, in the country it can be a few miles away.

Similarly, in rural areas, train stations are often a great distance away from people’s homes and transport is needed to get to the station. So railways cannot be seen as a solution in their own right. However, we need to encourage people on to the railways and other forms of public transport. The train is often the best method for commuting to the cities, thus avoiding the congested roads that buses also travel along.

The March 2012 report, “Reforming our Railways: Putting the Customer First” said that the Government are allocating funding for additional capacity for people to commute to cities at peak times, including faster journey times, more frequent trains, more through-journeys, more reliable journeys and more cost-efficient journeys. I hope that the South West Trains franchise will make some of those improvements.

The lack of public transport and the increase in the price of fuel are major concerns for people in South East Cornwall. Wages in Cornwall are very low in relation to both the south-west as a whole and the rest of the country. In 2001, the average income per household in South East Cornwall was around £23,000. Since then, the figure has not changed significantly. Any increase in fuel prices is disproportionately felt in my constituency, as are increases to many other household bills. In my constituency, the average house price is around 10 times the average household income.

Transport is important in supporting our rural communities, and it has a knock-on effect on people’s standards of living. I am glad that the Government are committed to helping our rural poor. There are initiatives such as the Cott Yard community resource centre in St Neot in my constituency, where £330,000 was provided under the community and social enterprise, or CASE, initiative, which is a funding stream in Cornwall that was part of the rural development plan for England. That project is one such example of the Government helping rural areas. It provides rural workshops, a post office and a library run by volunteers, to deliver services in rural areas. Another such example is the fisheries local action group, or FLAG, initiative, whereby substantial funding is provided under the European fisheries fund. It has been enlarged to support coastal communities as a whole, extending out to one mile from the coast. I am really pleased that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has introduced those initiatives, and long may they continue and be built on.

We all accept the economic legacy left by Labour’s maxing out of our credit cards, and I hope that the two examples that I have just given will be built on, so that we have faster positive changes to help our constituents living in rural areas.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order.