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Rural Communities (Recession)

Indeed, "The Archers" is doing a great job in popularising that technology. However, this country is way behind in deploying it—for example, about 70 times more anaerobic digesters exist in Germany—despite the clear engagement of the farming community and their willingness to lead the way. On rural services, let us give a commitment that we will not see the provision of key services—especially health services—as "one size fits all". Let us acknowledge that whatever rules apply to the provision of hospital services in urban areas, there are overriding concerns in rural areas. It cannot be right for heart and stroke services at rural hospitals such as Westmorland general hospital to be removed to places such as Lancaster, leaving patients in emergency need up to an hour and a half away from their nearest acute hospital. Neither can it be right to force cancer patients in rural areas to make daily three-hour round trips for life-saving treatment. That is why we are committed to returning acute services and to creating new cancer services at our rural hospitals. That is right not only because people in rural communities deserve the same standards of health care as those in urban communities but because the development of, for example, a new £15 million cancer treatment unit at my local hospital in Kendal, and at others, would be a significant economic driver. Tourism is central to the economies of many rural areas. The Cumbrian tourism economy alone is worth £1.2 billion each year. This year, there are some signs, in the lakes and dales at least, that businesses in the tourism industry are faring better than expected. I suspect that the weakness of the pound and the strength of the product have helped us, but times are still challenging. Although much of tourism's revenue goes back to the Exchequer, there is little attempt by the Government to nurture that investment. Small bed and breakfast establishments are forced to abide by the same regulations and rules as huge hotel chains. They are hampered by ridiculous cut-off rules on VAT, which limit their ability to grow and take custom. The support for marketing of our tourism industry is dismal. We have a premier league tourism product in this country, but especially in England we have non-league levels of marketing funding. The Government must acknowledge the importance of our tourism industry if they are to help the rural economy fight its way out of recession. In all of that, it is essential that local communities are in control of their own destiny. As we have seen from the loss of post offices, the decline of many communities and the cuts to rural health services, there is an overwhelming sense of anger at things being done to us without our consent. We are sometimes offered consultations, but that has become a meaningless word under this Labour Government. Never have we been more consulted and less listened to. The top-down decisions to close jobcentres in rural areas, rob our rural communities of post offices, take away rural tax offices, force through the reduction in social housing stock and remove acute hospital services have all damaged our rural communities, but we were given no say in them.