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Rural Communities (Recession)

My hon. Friend has made an excellent and incredibly important point. Another issue in my constituency and other rural areas is how partially publicly owned banks have pulled the plug on providing mortgages for affordable homes. Tragically, in my constituency—and others too, no doubt—homes are standing empty because people are asked to come up with 30 per cent. deposits. People with such deposits would not be in the market for an affordable home. The banks need to play ball. In many respects, it seems that we have the worst of both worlds: we spend money on the banks, but we appear to have little control over how they relate to our rural economy and other parts of the economy. The lack of affordable housing in rural areas is only half of the problem: the other half is a lack of well-paid work. The Government need to look to rural Britain as an engine room of creativity on many fronts. The former Minister with responsibility for renewable energy, the right hon. and learned Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), kindly met me and representatives of the business community in Cumbria to discuss our attempt to create a new business park for the renewable energy sector, which will create 900 jobs in south Cumbria if we are successful. The Government need to get behind such schemes across the country and to be imaginative about the ways in which we can support hydro-energy, for example, in our rural areas. We can protect our environment and create well-paid jobs through the same action. The drain of young people from our communities is crippling rural Britain. As they leave to seek affordable homes and decent work, they leave behind them communities who desperately need them and families who are unnecessarily separated from them, and they take with them their energy and creativity—and, of course, their fertility. My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), who was in his place a moment or two ago, once stood on an election slogan of "Breed for Cornwall". Joking aside, there is a great need to breed for rural Britain. My wife and I are doing our bit, but there is a limit.