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Rural Communities (Recession)

No, I would not for a second question the statistics that the hon. Gentleman cites about his constituency, any more than he would question mine. He has much greater familiarity with the area. I said earlier that the rural community was not homogenous, and that there were differences in many areas. I hope that that qualifies my comments about the rural community doing well. It was a qualified observation, as the hon. Gentleman will be able to read in due course. The intention, of course, is to avoid any systematic disadvantage based on geography, but in effect the measures taken by Government more generally to stimulate the economy and to get us all out of recession are just as important to rural communities and businesses as to elsewhere. Given the many similarities between rural and urban economies, we believe that that is the right approach, rather than establishing a number of separate smaller rural schemes that would only add to the costs of administration.