Lord Foster of Bath:

Moved by Lord Foster of Bath

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 9, after “disparities” insert “including between predominantly urban and predominantly rural areas”Member's explanatory statementThis amendment ensures that the objectives the Government intends to pursue to reduce geographical disparities will include the reduction of disparities between predominantly urban and predominantly rural areas.

My Lords, the amendments in this group are about ensuring that the levelling-up agenda addresses the needs of rural and coastal communities, which many of us believe have been left behind—some would say ignored—by the policies of successive Governments, which have focused on the needs of urban communities. In moving Amendment 3 and speaking to Amendments 11, 12 and 35 in my name, I thank other noble Lords who have supported them. I certainly support the other amendments in this group, which complement my own.

At Second Reading, I reminded your Lordships that back in 2019 I chaired the Select Committee on the Rural Economy. Our inquiry found that rural communities and the economies in them have been ignored and underrated for too long, with government policies designed primarily for urban areas. Compared with such areas, we discovered that in rural ones, house prices were higher while wages were lower; council taxes were higher while Governments’ support for their councils was lower; funding per head for services such as healthcare, policing and public transport was lower, despite costing more to provide; and broadband business support, banking and other services lagged way behind those in urban areas. We concluded that we must act now to reverse this trend, and that we can no longer allow the clear inequalities between the urban and rural to continue unchecked. Yet there is no evidence that any serious efforts have been made to address these inequalities since that time.

More recently, writing in the House magazine just last month, the Conservative MP for North Devon, Selaine Saxby, wrote,

“there are far too many left behind rural and coastal communities, often overlooked by government policies.”

This view is echoing the April 2022 report by the APPG for the rural powerhouse, Levelling Up the Rural Economy, which said:

“The overwhelming consensus was that no government in recent memory has had a programme to unlock the economic and social potential of the countryside.”

The Rural Services Network has illustrated this brilliantly by using government headline metrics to show that, if all rural areas together were treated as a single region, their need for levelling up would be greater than that of any other region in the country.

Despite Selaine Saxby’s call for

“more consideration of rurality when considering policies and funding decisions”, it is clearly not currently happening. As the RSN has shown, current government-funded spending power for predominantly rural areas lags way behind that for predominantly urban areas. Government grants per head for services such as police and public health—and even from the UK shared prosperity fund, excluding Cornwall—are lower in rural areas. A different approach, one that takes account of the very special and varied needs of rural and coastal communities, would be of enormous benefit to not just the individuals living in such communities but to the overall economy of the country.

As the APPG report points out, at present,

“the rural economy is 18% less productive than the national average. Closing this gap would be worth up to £43bn in England alone”, with

“the creation of hundreds of thousands of good jobs in areas so often blighted by underemployment”.

So it would have been reasonable to assume that, as a major element, the Government’s levelling-up agenda would have had measures designed to close that gap. That is what they actually promised. When the White Paper was published last year, a departmental spokesman said:

“Rural areas are at the heart of our levelling-up agenda. Our White Paper is a plan for everyone, including rural communities who rightly expect and deserve access to better services, quicker transport and quality education.”

I believe that the Government also said this in their second report on rural proofing, an issue to which I will return in a second. They are fine words, but it appears that they are not backed by action. There is nothing in the Bill or the Explanatory Memorandum that refers to rural issues. There is no evidence whatever that the Bill has a focus on the need to level up between urban and rural, as either an objective or part of a mission.

Amendments 3, 12 and 36, together with Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, are needed to ensure that the Government’s stated intention becomes part of the legislation and hence a driver for measures to close the urban-rural gap. They insert the reduction of the disparities between urban and rural as an objective and part of the missions. A similar case can be made—and, no doubt, will be, by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Taylor of Stevenage—for coastal communities, as covered in Amendments 53 and 488.

In addition, two other things are needed. We have to ensure that all the measures taken by government, whether arising from the Bill or any other, take account of the often very different needs of rural communities. That requires ensuring that all go through a process of rural proofing. The Lords Select Committee report that I referred to earlier called for the whole process of rural proofing to be significantly improved. In responding, the Government agreed. They accepted that “more can be done” and promised the development and promotion of a greater understanding across departments of the opportunities and challenges in rural areas, the development of supporting resources and the establishment of a rural affairs board.

Given the clear absence of any reference, despite the promises given, to rural in the Bill, it is hard to conclude other than that not only was rural-proofing the Bill not subject to the promised procedural improvements, but that, frankly, it did not happen at all. In Committee on the Animal Welfare Bill, when responding to Amendment 13 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the Defra Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, said:

“Rural-proofing does not need a Bill; it does not need legislation. It just needs a will across government to do it.” —[Official Report, 6/7/21; col. CG 336.]

It seems that in this case the will was not there, but no doubt the Minister will wish to address that point when responding. I hope he will also accept Amendment 33 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, ensuring that all levelling-up policies take into account rural-proofing principles.

Finally, if the needs of rural communities are to be addressed, we need adequate data about them. In the second report on rural-proofing, the Government recognised this point:

“We will work to improve spatial analysis so the impacts on rural communities can be more easily assessed.”

So Amendment 11 is designed, as with all my other amendments, to put government promises into legislation. It would ensure that data for the smallest areas available is used to enable levelling-up missions to take account of the disparities within regions, including between urban and rural. Amendment 53, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, also addresses this issue.

For too long, rural communities have been left behind, often because government policies have been designed with urban communities in mind. The Government tend to deny this charge and offer fine words about the importance of rural, but nothing could illustrate the failure to deliver more than the absence of any reference to rural in this Bill. These amendments are designed to help the Government deliver on their own promises. I beg to move.

My Lords, I bring apologies from my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who has an unchangeable appointment and has asked me to speak to her amendment. We have heard a great deal in discussing the previous two groups about whether details should or should not be in the Bill, but my noble friend’s amendment addresses a small element of what the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, was talking about: the level of public services in rural areas, which the Government will need to watch very closely.

The countryside throughout the UK is in a state of flux. Going back a bit, it was mainly concerned with production and employment; now, a major part is managing ecosystem services. A novel part is managing it so that the urban population can enjoy it, linger longer and hopefully part with a bit of their cash without impacting too much on the environment they have come to enjoy. At present, it is impossible to tell what public services will be needed. Will the Government encourage people to live in, to retire to the countryside? At the moment, the services people living in the countryside look for are health, post offices, banks and even, I might mention, electricity. Any of these might be superseded or combined. The important thing is that the Government maintain a mission to make sure that the vital services are adequate, without having to drive to the other side of the country.

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner as set out in the register. I would like to apologise at the outset for not speaking at Second Reading, but I was unable to attend the whole debate. However, I spoke at length on this issue during the debate on the Queen’s Speech.

Like others, I was deeply involved in the inquiry undertaken by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Rural Business and the Rural Powerhouse, Levelling up the rural economy: an inquiry into rural productivity. At the time, this was warmly welcomed by the Government. I have therefore taken this opportunity to table Amendment 33, which would include the principal recommendations of this inquiry in the Bill. I am also most grateful for the support of my noble friend Lord Devon, and I heartily agree with everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose.

The conclusion of the APPG inquiry was that no Government have had a programme to unlock the economic and social potential of the countryside:

“The need to ‘level up’ the countryside is as urgent as it is obvious … Rural homes are less affordable than urban homes. Poverty is more dispersed … making it harder to combat, while the depth of rural fuel poverty is more extreme than those facing similar circumstances in towns and cities. Only 46% of rural areas have good 4G coverage, and skills training and public services are harder to access.”

As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, the result is that the rural economy is 18% less productive. Closing this gap in England alone would produce a gain to the economy of £43 billion. The inquiry concluded that many matters affecting the rural economy

“fell between the cracks of Whitehall”, as it is commonly assumed that Defra alone is responsible for the rural economy.

I therefore welcome the opportunity this Bill gives to ensure that all Government levelling-up policies take into account rural-proofing principles. To argue that the statement of levelling-up missions covers the main disparities experienced by rural areas is not sufficient, as many of the identified challenges are much greater for rural businesses and communities. Poor transport, restrictive planning, geographic isolation, lack of access to skills training, lack of digital connectivity and lack of affordable housing demonstrate this.

These challenges would be easier to overcome if the Bill recognised the importance of rural economic development. Some 23% of all businesses are based in the countryside, and 85% of these are not in farming or forestry. The amendment would ensure that the Bill makes explicit reference to the rural-proofing of government policy across all departments, so that the impact of decisions on the rural economy is assessed and there is a mechanism to tackle the disparities inherent in rural areas.

For too long, those living in rural communities have been considered an afterthought in policy-making. Rural-proofing is a reactive measure to policy. If the Government retain the view that rural-proofing can be an effective tool in assisting levelling up, then the Bill must provide a legally binding obligation on all government departments to meet their respective rural-proofing obligations and ensure compliance. Can the Minister assure us that the Government will adopt this important amendment, as they have already welcomed the APPG inquiry’s conclusions?

My Lords, it is an honour to speak to this important group of amendments focused on the rural and coastal implications of the levelling-up strategy. I particularly speak to Amendments 3 and 33, to which I have added my name, and also Amendment 53 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, which I support. I apologise for not being present at Second Reading, and note for the purposes of this and future contributions my interests in the register, particularly my interest as a rural business operator near deprived coastal communities; my role at Michelmores with clients in both rural and urban development; the work that I do with Exeter City Council, offering a rural voice to support the city’s sustainability and well-being aspirations; and my self-appointed role as a champion of Devon, which has significant rural and coastal populations.

The opening of the Bill reminds me of the opening provisions of the Agriculture Bill, which listed the public goods that the environmental land management scheme was to deliver. Those public goods were in the Bill, and we spent many happy hours debating what should or should not be included. It was described as a Christmas tree with a bauble for just about everyone. This Bill does not have missions on its face, but the missions listed in the White Paper are a similar set of baubles: shiny objectives intended to offer something to everyone. As just debated, I too am concerned that the Government will be able to change and/or abandon those missions without adequate scrutiny. Also, as I think we will hear in the next group, I am surprised, given this Government’s environmental ambitions, that environmental targets are excluded. Given that the Treasury-commissioned Dasgupta report highlighted the crucial economic importance of ecosystem services and biodiversity—largely delivered through our rural economy—it is remarkable that the environmental mission is absent. Without appropriate focus on the rural and coastal economy, we will not achieve those environmental ambitions.

However, the amendments in this group are aimed not at expanding or amending the levelling-up missions but at making explicit where geographically those levelling-up missions are to be targeted. There is a real fear among residents of deprived rural and coastal communities that the Government’s focus will be upon urban regeneration, particularly in the north of England, and that, the Government having secured their Commons majority by promising levelling up to such communities, the deprived rural and coastal communities in the east, south and west of the country, whose votes did not swing the election, will miss out once more, entrenching deep-rooted disparities.

Your Lordships’ Select Committees provide compelling evidence to support these amendments. As we heard in his excellent speech opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Foster, chaired the Select Committee on the Rural Economy, which found that

“successive governments have underrated the contribution rural economies can make to the nation’s prosperity and wellbeing.”

In the years since that report, the rural disparities that the committee identified have only increased, with the pandemic and the cost of living crisis wreaking havoc, alongside insecurities over farming.

The pandemic entrenched the deprivation caused by inadequate digital connectivity. The collapse in local government funding has seen public transport slashed in rural areas. Planning challenges and an influx of wealthy home workers have inflated house prices beyond all reasonable measure, and there is little or no new affordable housing being built. Increased energy prices, as we have just heard, have fallen particularly hard upon the rural economy, given the escalating cost of gas and oil to heat isolated homes and businesses. Government support for farming businesses has been dramatically cut, with the new ELM scheme yet to be delivered. At the same time, the public are demanding ever more access to our rural spaces, which is causing a spike in crime, litter, trespass and tensions. Amendments 3 and 33, along with a number of others in this group, would ensure that rural communities are not missed out once more, and that the principle of rural-proofing is enshrined in the levelling-up agenda.

As to coastal communities, the story is no better. The Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities reported in 2019 that

“for too long our seaside towns have felt isolated, unsupported and left behind.”

I could not agree more, and therefore strongly support Amendment 53 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor.

If the Bill is not specific as to where we need to focus the levelling-up missions and does not provide for an analysis of its impact upon our forgotten and ignored communities, those communities may fall further and further behind. The levelling-up agenda will simply blow in the political wind, allowing successive Governments to offer baubles to the regions they favour, rather than those in most objective need.

Finally, these amendments are not simply an effort to help deprived communities for their own sake; there is a well-established economic justification showing that focus upon rural and coastal communities will reap dividends for the whole country. As we have heard, the rural economy is 19% less productive than the country as a whole and closing the productivity gap would add £40 billion or more to the economy. Furthermore, the Treasury’s own independent Dasgupta review concluded how important it was for us to recognise the economic contribution of ecosystem services that our rural economy provides. We will all benefit from a healthier rural economy. As the NFU argues, it is not possible to go green when in the red, and a failure to direct the levelling-up missions to rural and coastal communities will continue to hold them back and unduly hinder the economic and environmental ambitions of the whole country. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope she will agree to enshrine rural and coastal communities at the heart of the levelling-up agenda.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to echo his concern about the lack of environmental ambitions expressed in the Bill, which I think we will also discuss in the next group. In my first contribution in Committee, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, to cover my other contributions in Committee.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his powerful and expert introduction to this group. I will speak briefly to offer Green group support for the general direction of all these amendments. I will focus in particular on Amendment 5, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which was ably introduced by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and talks about looking at

“the disparities between rural and urban areas”.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, talked about the different needs of different areas, but it is really important that, when we think about levelling up, we actually see ambitions for equal services for people all across these islands.

I will reflect on some of the experiences I have had in some small communities. Clun is a tiny, picture-perfect postcard village in south-west Shropshire near the Wales border. When I visited a decade ago, the locals believed that it was the smallest place in the UK with a food bank, which was operating out of the church. One of the volunteers working at that food bank told me that, until he got involved in that food bank, he never believed that anyone would need a food bank in Clun. He was absolutely and deeply shocked by the level of need and the experiences he encountered. There is a desperate need for essential support services. While I do not think that we should rest until the last food bank closes because of a lack of demand, we need to put other services in place to help the people who are now reliant on those food banks.

Another issue for so many of these areas is the fact that policies designed for cities and urban areas get imposed on rural areas. This makes me think about the time I visited a school in north Norfolk. The schools in that area had had imposed on them the idea of specialist schools: “Isn’t it great if pupils can choose to go to a sports academy or a language-specialising school?” However, as each village only had one bus service, pupils had no choice about which school they went to; they went only to the school that the bus went to. If you were really good at and fancied sports, but you ended up in the language school, that was just tough luck. That was because of policies imposed on rural areas which are just inappropriate.

I return to the issue of buses, because it is very close to the heart of the Green Party, having announced this week our policy for a fare that would be available to everyone in the country on local buses, “A One Pound Fare to Take You There”. When I talk about local buses in rural areas, I often get reactions such as, “Well, you can’t expect a bus in a rural area; it just won’t work.” However, I have been to Finland, where I caught a bus that went right into the middle of a national park. I went for a walk, I came back and stood at the bus stop, and I waited for the next bus service, which came every half an hour, all day, in the middle of that national park. So, when thinking about levelling up in an absolute and real sense, we should not be saying, “Oh, it’s a rural area; they can’t expect this or that.” In particular, we should not say that they cannot expect the foundation of a bus service so that people can get around. For that reason, I think that Amendment 3, about reducing disparities, is crucial.

My final point is about the little bit of discussion we have had on the Government’s vision for rural areas. Over the decades, the direction of travel in rural areas has been that landholdings and farms will have to get bigger and bigger, with fewer and fewer people working on them. However, I suggest that levelling up for rural areas means restoring small businesses and small farms which employ quite a lot of people. That then means that there are children to go to the local school, that there are people to get on the bus, and that the bus is there for the older people who need it, perhaps because they cannot drive any more. Restoring communities is about a lot more than asking, “Oh, what’s there and what can we support?”; it is about a vision.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath for raising this very important issue and for providing an evidence base and powerful argument in support of rural communities in particular. This short but important debate has cast a focus on the confusion at the heart of levelling up, which the debate on Amendment 1 was trying to resolve: what do we mean by levelling up and spatial disparities? What do we mean by improving the lives of people who live in different parts of the country, where for some there is low pay, low skills and poor health and for others there is a lack of connectivity or a lack of opportunities? Because we have not resolved that confusion, we will, throughout the passage of the Bill, get arguments of different natures in support of communities which need levelling up, whatever we mean by it. I hope that levelling up will not mean, or be defined by the Government as, either “rural levelling up” or “urban levelling up”, or that we will level up coastal, rural or urban areas separately. The levelling-up agenda must have a clear definition—which is in the White Paper, as I keep pointing out, but is not in the Bill—about the geographical disparities across this country, be they rural, coastal or urban, that result in people’s lives and the country being poorer. The levelling-up Bill ought to address that, but it unfortunately fails to do so.

I was struck by a really good phrase used by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, about levelling up: we do not want levelling-up ambitions to “blow in the political wind”. That is one of the reasons why I support having both the broad mission statements and the broad metrics for those mission statements in the Bill, so that we can say to whatever Government we have, “This is what we have agreed to, and this is what we are going to demand that you address.” Otherwise, we will come back again to the debate about the difficulties for people who live in rural areas. While noble Lords might think that West Yorkshire, where I live, is a big urban area, surprisingly, the upper Colne Valley could not be more rural; there are scattered farm settlements across the hillsides going up to the top of the Pennines. Its residents understand what it means to not have access to public transport, mobile networks or broadband connectivity.

Let us not go down the route of it being one or the other. I hope the Government will, even if I have to encourage them again, eventually closely define what they mean by “geographical disparities” and then address them through the missions and metrics that I hope we will put on the face of the Bill.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for introducing his amendment—this is a really important amendment going forward. I also thank him for mentioning the work of the Rural Services Network; its report is incredibly important in informing the approach that the Government need to take and the work they need to do to reduce the disparities faced by rural areas. The Government would do well to take notice and account of what the Rural Service Network does as they continue to move forward with their levelling-up missions.

I have one amendment in this group, Amendment 488, and my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage has Amendment 53 in this group. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for his support for my noble friend’s amendment. I very much agree with him that the environmental emissions targets need to be included in this, if we are to have any chance of meeting what is laid out in the Environment Act.

The noble Earl also very clearly laid out many of the concerns that face both our rural and coastal communities, including that they constantly feel missed out and left behind. They will be concerned that this is what will happen to them again. It is really important that we consider this properly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, rural poverty is so often missed and underestimated; often it is not as in your face as urban poverty, and we need to ensure we take full account of it.

My noble friend’s Amendment 53

“is to probe whether the metrics are suitable for rural and coastal communities, and whether alternative metrics should be considered.”

Here is an example from the document that was published on the mission and metrics—the technical annexe. I remind noble Lords of the metric that accompanies mission 3:

“By 2030, local public transport connectivity across the country will be significantly closer to the standards of London, with improved services, simpler fares and integrated ticketing.”

The metrics that will be used to assess progress in achieving that mission are

“method of travel to work by region of workplace … The other headline metric is the average journey time to centres of employment, with the data broken down by modes of transport and at lower tier local authority level in England.”

What they do not do is tell us how much public transport exists in the first place.

I live in an area where we have one bus a week—that is not one bus that comes and goes during that day, but one bus that goes to one place on one day of the week—and it gives us a couple of hours in the place it arrives before we have to come home again. I genuinely do not understand how, in the area where I live, these metrics will deliver transport connectivity that is “significantly closer” to the standards of London. I genuinely have no concept of how these metrics will achieve that.

My other concern is that the principal objective is “growing the private sector”. Again, I cannot see how growing the private sector in the area I live, or in the areas that surround it, will suddenly bring me a really good bus service. The one thing that might help is if the Government reintroduced the rural bus grant fund that they took away. That led to dozens and dozens in my area losing their services—I know this because I was a county councillor at the time—because they were simply no longer profitable. Looking at the metrics from a rural perspective is incredibly important, if we are genuinely going to drive change in this area.

My Amendment 488 would mean that

“ a Minister must publish an assessment of infrastructure levels in coastal and rural communities.”

Look at coastal communities: for a start, their very geography means that they are right at the end of the line. If they have lost industry and there is bad transport connectivity, it is difficult for investment in infrastructure to be made in those coastal communities. This means that many have continued to go downhill—I guess that is the expression. It is important that we assess what infrastructure we have in those coastal areas, and in rural areas, so that we have a baseline—a starting point—that we can move on from. Perhaps the Government are already considering doing this. It would be good to have further information on that and on how they intend to take it forward.

The noble Lords, Lord Foster of Bath and Lord Carrington, both talked about rural-proofing. It has been mentioned already that, if these missions are to be successful, they have to be across every department, and certain departments will have to take control in order to deliver. However, the rural-proofing agenda has been very much Defra’s agenda and has never been grasped properly, or funded properly, by other departments. Again, how will we ensure that these outcomes will be properly realised in rural areas, when Defra itself acknowledged that rural areas have remained behind the rest of the country on a whole host of important metrics, despite rural-proofing supposedly having been in place for many years? We know it has not been working. There are three major reasons why it has not worked in its current form: the lack of leadership, vision and co-ordination from central government; often, a lack of knowledge and understanding of rural areas from central government; and the basic lack of resources. How will these missions challenge this, take this into account and change that approach? That is what we need if we are to see a real change in our rural and coastal communities as part of these missions.

Will the Minister ask her colleagues in different departments to ask themselves, when they are creating policy that would impact on these missions, how it would work in a rural area and what effect it would have on rural communities, so that that is properly taken into consideration? We need to make sure that policies are adjusted as needed, to ensure that any intended outcomes can be realised in rural areas. For example, funding formulas may need to be adjusted to take account of how it would be delivered in a rural area, or we may need to look at an alternative method of service provision. Too often, rural and coastal communities have felt like an afterthought in Whitehall and Westminster. This is an opportunity to put them back at the centre, along with other communities that need levelling up, for the sake of a better expression.

We have already heard about the importance of no community being left behind. Rural communities therefore need to be much more explicitly assessed to ensure that they are central to the Government’s levelling-up missions, so that they can believe they are being taken seriously and there is a change in the future of their potential. I live in a very rural area; it is a blessing in many ways to live in a rural area, but it also comes with many challenges, and I wonder if, often, we do not shout about them quite enough.

We heard that rural communities struggle to access high-speed broadband and that housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable. I live in Cumbria, and it is particularly difficult when there is a large number of second homes. Airbnb has not helped, from a rental point of view. Amendments were put down in the other place by Tim Farron MP on this issue, and when we come to discuss the housing section of the Bill, we really need to think about the rural aspect as well. It is not just about building homes; it is about who owns them, who lives in them and who they are accessible to. That is a very important aspect of the rural approach.

The top issues for countryside and coastal communities are very similar to those for urban areas, but with added—or perhaps a different kind of—complexity. Distance, for example, is hugely important. Much smaller communities have higher prices, as we have heard, but they often also have lower wages, as well as work that is potentially seasonal. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which was well introduced by the noble Duke, addresses this. Delivering public services in large rural areas is simply more expensive, but that is not taken into account in government funding calculations. It is really difficult to deliver social care effectively in large rural areas when, for example, the distance time is not always included in someone’s wages. How do you deliver a really good service under those circumstances?

Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for this debate. It is extremely important, and I hope the Minister has some positive things to say to us.

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses issues impacting rural and coastal communities across the United Kingdom. Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, considers the reduction of disparities between predominantly urban and predominantly rural areas. Amendment 5, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, puts forward a new mission to a similar effect, reducing the disparities between rural and urban areas in the provision of public services.

The framework set out in this Bill provides ample opportunity to scrutinise the substance of missions against a range of government policies, including levelling up in rural areas and improving people’s access to green and blue spaces. I can reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to spreading the benefits of levelling up to rural communities and that spending by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs helps to support the levelling-up agenda.

The Government are already committed to delivering an annual report on rural-proofing, led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and examining how government policy considers rural issues. I hope this reassures noble Lords that such work is going on by this Government. I will say more about rural-proofing in a minute.

I agree with the sentiments of Amendments 11 and 12, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster. More granular spatial data is crucial to ensure that policy fully recognises the different characteristics, opportunities and challenges of different places, including between large cities, small towns, and rural and coastal areas. Many people have talked about data. It is important to have the data, both historically and moving forward, in order for us to make the metrics correct for what we are trying to deliver.

I will give a little more information, which is a bit technical—well, it seems technical to me; it may not to noble Lords—on what is happening within government to better identify these geographical disparities. To tackle these data gaps and harness the potential of new data visualisation and experimentation techniques in support of levelling up, the UK Government are putting in place a transformative data analysis strategy at subnational level. The strategy has four elements: first, producing and disseminating more timely, granular and harmonised subnational statistics through the Government Statistical Service’s subnational data strategy; secondly, making granular data publicly available through a number of tools, including a new ONS interactive subnational data explorer; thirdly, harnessing data visualisation techniques and building capacity within the ONS to help decision-makers better understand and compare outcomes; and, lastly, increasing incentives to evaluate, monitor and experiment in levelling-up policies and programmes. From that, I think noble Lords can see that we agree that data is important in delivering what we want to deliver in this levelling-up legislation.

To complement the strategy I have just explained, we are establishing a new spatial data unit to drive forward the data transformation required in central government. The spatial data unit will support the delivery of levelling up by transforming the way the UK Government gather, store and manipulate subnational data so that it underpins transparent and open policy-making and delivery decisions. This will include improving how we collate and report on the UK Government’s spend and outcomes, including building strong capabilities on data visualisation and insights. To me, it is really important that, first, we always know what is being delivered and what we want to deliver and that we have all the metrics to do that.

The spatial data unit will also consider the differences between geographical areas, such as regions, counties, councils, and even down to council wards, according to the needs and objectives of specific missions or policy areas. This will be extremely important, particularly when we are talking about small rural areas.

There was a lot of discussion about transport, an area in which it is important to have the data before decisions are made. As a council leader, I had to make some very difficult decisions about bus services. Some of them were never used, so why keep them? You need the data in order to make sound decisions.

The LURB introduces a series of powers to enable the introduction of the infrastructure levy, which will be able to account for the needs of those living in rural as well as urban areas, helping to support the provision of infrastructure that the areas need most. The Bill also requires local authorities to prepare infrastructure delivery strategies. These will set out a strategy for delivering local infrastructure through the spending of levy proceeds. They will create a more transparent process, so that local people know how the funds will be spent and what infrastructure will be delivered to support development. The Government have also just announced £3 billion for local bus and cycle links, because we understand that local transport is important to people. We will work with local leaders to ensure that they can use their powers to improve the services in their area, set the fares and make transport far more accessible for their local communities.

Amendment 33, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, would require that annual reporting on the levelling-up missions include an assessment of how each mission has met the principles of the rural-proofing policy. Amendment 36, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, states that reporting on missions must include the Minister’s assessment in relation to rural areas. Amendment 53, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, asks for a report assessing whether new legislation should be produced to establish new metrics for rural and coastal communities. Finally, Amendment 488, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, suggests the publication of the assessment of infrastructure levels in coastal and rural communities.

A key part of the levelling-up White Paper was the recognition that policy needs to be tailored to the needs of different places around the UK. The White Paper trailed the publication of a second annual report on rural proofing, Delivering for Rural England, which was published in September 2022. Taking the levelling-up missions as its framework, the publication set out specific considerations for levelling up in rural areas and how government departments are seeking to address these—through targeted approaches where needed as well as broader measures to strengthen the rural economy, develop rural infrastructure, deliver rural services and ensure good management of the natural environment.

Noble Lords can see from this that it is not just about Defra; it is all of government looking at the effects of those services on rural communities. The report also announced the launch of the £110 million rural England prosperity fund to enable local authorities to provide small capital grants to support rural businesses and community infrastructure. This is replacing funding previously provided by the EU through the LEADER and Growth elements of the England Rural Development Programme, and is a rural top-up to the UK shared prosperity fund.

At its heart, the levelling-up agenda recognises that different places have different opportunities and challenges and need different tools in order to address these. Rather than applying standardised, national or aggregate measures, therefore, the missions are supported by a range of clear metrics used to measure them at the appropriate level of geography. These metrics take account of a wider range of inputs, outputs and outcomes needed to drive progress in the overall mission. They cover a wide range of policy issues, but all are clearly linked to drivers of spatial disparities.

The appropriate unit of comparison will vary depending on the mission or policy area. To help us tailor analysis and policy to the UK’s complex economic geography, timely and robust spatial data has been made a foundational pillar of the new policy regime for levelling up.

I want to reassure noble Lords that we are committed to supporting coastal communities to flourish, strengthening their appeal as places to live, work and visit. Through our coastal communities fund, we supported a huge number of projects in communities across the country, with a total investment of £187 million. We recently published the evaluation, which showed how it stimulated job growth and prosperity in those areas. That aligns with the goals of the mission of the levelling-up White Paper to increase living standards.

Coastal communities continue to receive investment from our funding programmes, including 22 places that are receiving town deals collectively worth £673 million. The levelling-up fund offers investment opportunities for coastal communities to promote regeneration and build vital infrastructure. The £2.6 billion UK shared prosperity fund—of which growing the private sector in localities is a core objective—is being delivered through an allocative process that reaches every part of the UK. Seven out of the eight English freeports are in coastal areas, and the Government have also undertaken deep dives in Blackpool and Grimsby, which have led to tangible improvements and investment in these areas and helped deepen our understanding of the challenges faced by different coastal communities.

In light of these efforts and commitments, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, particularly the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, who referenced the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which, together with my Amendment 3, focused the debate very clearly on the difference in the current approach between urban and rural.

I was heartened by a couple of things the Minister said. First, I was genuinely pleased by her remarks about the data transformation programme that is taking place. Like her, I might have to put a towel over my head later tonight in order to read the detail and understand it. Talk about timely data, granular data, harmonised data at a subnational level, and then gathering, storing and manipulating it is great—as long as that data is at a very refined subnational level, not just a regional level. However, I think that is what the Minister said we are going to get.

I was also heartened by the Minister’s reference to the need for different solutions in different places—a place-based approach, which I think is fundamental. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about problems in rural areas, such as with transport and education. I was involved, not very many years ago, in a conversation with a group of people looking at how to deal with FE college students in rural areas being unable to get to work experience placements. The solution arrived at was giving free bus passes to all 16 to 19-year-olds, which sounds great—until there are no buses. A solution was found in some rural areas and it is still operating: “wheels to work”. It is the local solution that is necessary, but if that is going to happen, there needs to be local leadership and a fair funding formula that enables the funds needed.

Notwithstanding the list the Minister just gave us of things she claims the Government are doing to help rural and coastal areas, the RSN analysis clearly shows that they are still losing out. So, while we welcome some moves in the right direction, they do not go far enough. I will of course withdraw the amendment for now, but so far I have been given no justification whatever for why, since the Government claim to believe in what I am saying, they are not prepared to put this on the face of the Bill. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 3 withdrawn.