Orders of the Day — Local Government and Rating Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:31 pm on 6 November 1996.

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Photo of Frank Dobson Frank Dobson Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport) 4:31, 6 November 1996

The Secretary of State told my hon. Friend the Member for York that it would be entirely marginal, but apparently it is so marginal that we can ignore it if we are making that argument, yet the Secretary of State is also trying to tell us that it is crucial to the future of the field sports industry. The Government will have to make up their mind.

I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison), but I must tell him that, to the best of my knowledge, I have said nothing about Hagg wood but the truth. I take great care with what I say. Until now, people have been able to use the wood without let or hindrance, going where they like. Even a combination of the Church Commissioners and the Forestry Commission cannot do away with certain rights of way through the wood. However, we have been told that, if the wood is sold, as part of the transaction the Church Commissioners will refuse to allow people the access that they have had before. They will be confined to the rights of way. That greatly diminishes the amenity.

All the hereditary owners of grouse moors and fishing rights will get a tax cut, but there are other sports in this country. Sports clubs that serve hundreds of thousands of less well-connected communities will still have to pay their rates. If the Government are interested in sport, why not pass a measure for all sporting industries rather than just one? It is a measure for the privileged few, with no money for anybody else.

At the very least, the concession should have been made available only to owners who intended to permit genuine public access to the land. If the Government do not support amendments that we shall table to secure such access, they will confirm that they remain the party of the privileged. The Prime Minister may want to go back to the old grouse moor image, although I think that he will have his work cut out.

While the Government have been in power, there has been a big increase in unemployment in rural areas. Many of those working there are badly paid. But for the opposition of the agricultural workers section of the Transport and General Workers Union, ably assisted by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), even more people in rural areas might have been receiving low wages, because the Government wanted to get rid of the agricultural wages board. They eventually gave up when they finally had to concede that the farmers did not want rid of the board.

No current debate on rural areas can avoid a mention of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which has been extremely damaging. It is probably the biggest catastrophe to hit rural Britain this century—there are only three years left in the century. The Government's handling of the issue has been inept from start to finish. They have lurched from complacency to panic, gone back to complacency and then panicked again. They are still nowhere near resolving the issue. Their crass ineptitude has made life well nigh impossible for farmers and others working in rural-based industries. The Government's handling of the beef crisis has made them the toast of the vegetarian movement.

Despite that, the Secretary of State attempts to portray the Tory party as the party of rural England. He gets upset when Labour Members refer to rural affairs. He is out of date and out of touch. These days, the Labour party represents communities in every part of England, from the centres of the largest cities to the smallest hamlets, through suburbs, market towns and villages. Rural England is not a no-go area for Labour. Throughout England, many predominantly rural areas have elected Labour representatives to parish, district and county councils, to the Westminster Parliament and to the European Parliament. That is one good reason why our policies include practical answers to the day-to-day problems faced by communities throughout rural Britain.

The leader of the Labour party represents Sedgefield— a mainly rural constituency in the north of England. His predecessor, John Smith, grew up in rural Scotland. His predecessor, Neil Kinnock, grew up in and represented a fairly rural part of Wales. There is nothing recent or strange about Labour's commitment to rural areas.

Labour covers the whole country, and our policies, including those on local government and rating, address the problems of the whole country. That must be right, because on planning policy, housing policy, environment policy or rating policy, we cannot separate what happens in towns from what happens in the country. They affect one another and they always will.

Consider the way in which the decline of market towns harms their residents and those from miles around. Leek, in Staffordshire—known as the Queen of the Moorlands—ought to be a prosperous market town, but it is a shadow of its former self. It had its own county court 20 years ago, but it has lost that, along with its Crown post office and its jobcentre. Its tax and benefits office is under threat for the second time. Magistrates courts in Biddulph and Kidsgrove have closed recently, and it is feared that Leek magistrates court will follow suit. Banks are withdrawing from the town, and more and more local people are forced to travel elsewhere for work. The cattle market has been badly hit by the BSE crisis. That is just one of the market towns in trouble under the Tories.

Town and country depend on one another. Their relationship is symbiotic—they live off one another to their mutual advantage. However, the countryside exists not just to serve the needs of towns and townspeople. It is also the place where local people live, die, work, play and have their being.