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Rural Communities (Recession)

I do not want to get diverted on to by-election issues, but I will say that it is no coincidence that the accounts of Norwich city council have not been written and agreed for many years, because of the way in which they have been put together. In my constituency, where we have two Conservative councils, we have proved, year in, year out that Conservative councils in Norfolk deliver for the people because they listen to the people and develop services for the people. It will be interesting to see how the people of Norwich take up that issue in the coming weeks leading up to the by-election. I now have more companies writing to me to say that they cannot get business loans than to say, "Thank you very much indeed. The bank has come to my rescue and I have got my loan." That is just not happening, and companies are going under. They are good third and fourth generation owner-managed companies that have invested in their business and spent every moment of every day trying to build up the well-being of their work force and produce products that are in many cases world-beating. They are run by dedicated people who are not profligate and who do not drive big cars or go on swanky holidays. Those people work every day of the year for the well-being of their organisation and the people they employ, but the banks are not helping them. They are pulling the rug from beneath them, and it is quite sickening to hear that bank profits are at their present levels. The fact that they are also paying such large bonuses against the will of the Government and of the people is quite extraordinary. It saddens me to think that the Government are not confronting this issue and dealing with it head on. Small businesses and enterprises in constituencies such as mine are desperate for a hand up, not a handout. This is not a question of the state coming to the rescue. I will pass on to the Minister some of the stories of the people in my constituency, because they are doing more than their best, but they are not being paid. They are trying to re-mortgage their houses in order to put money into their businesses, but the mortgage companies are not interested. Those people are in a Catch-22 situation. They take one step forward—and then have to take two steps back. That will not get us out of the recession or help those people in the future. It is a very sad day when I have to say these things, but they are true. This saddens me and all my colleagues. I would much prefer to fly the flag for our local businesses and tell the House how good things are for them, but I am afraid that that is not the case. At a time when we are looking to small businesses to lead us out of the recession, what impact does the Minister expect the Government's decision to end transitional relief to have on firms in rural areas? That is a simple question. As I said earlier, I am very fond of the Minister, but I am not so sure that either he or the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris) will be able to answer it. I do not believe that the Government have a coherent plan for the rural economy. I come back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) has just made about Norwich. It has been proved time and again that the Government do not need votes in rural areas to win elections. In my opinion, however, that should not influence the way in which they govern the country. I hope that the electorate will remind themselves of that point, come the general election. Many rural constituencies, including my own, have suffered jobcentre and post office closures. We have had a disproportionate amount of post office closures in my constituency, which is very sad. One or two of my constituents have taken it upon themselves to restart their post offices with the support of the community, but it has been extremely difficult. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset said, the post offices should become one-stop shops and the beacon of the local community, so that the local community can survive. My grandmother, who died just after Christmas at the age of 99, lived in my constituency. She would not have found it easy to go online to get her pension. That is an absolute, straightforward fact. She was a lovely woman, but she could not manage technology. So, when the local post office could not help her, what was she to do? That example from my own family is being echoed across the country, and it is a crying shame that, while post office closures are happening, the Government are sitting on their hands and saying, "It will work. It can work." That is okay for people who are aged 18 to 21 or from 25 to 30, but when people who are over 30 start wearing glasses and finding the digits difficult, these things are not so easy. People in that older age group just cannot manage, and retired people on fixed incomes are being disproportionately penalised. How does the Minister respond to my constituents who believe that, for the past decade, this Government have presided over the erosion of rural services, the true effects of which are now being felt as a result of the recession? The recession has hit them in the face. The Commission for Rural Communities has called on the Government to expand the financial services offered by the post office network, so that rural communities do not sink into financial exclusion, but I cannot see much action being taken by the Government to deal with that issue. The Conservative party has been calling for that action for some time. As I would say anyway: bring on the election, so that we can test the arguments with the electorate and allow a Conservative Government to come in and stand up for the rural economy in a way that this Government have not done. I am sure that the Minister will agree that, at times like these, post offices are a vital resource for people living in rural areas. Does he now see that the closure programme was woefully misguided? One of the groups being hardest hit is pensioners. A significant proportion of my electorate are pensioners, and they are struggling because of very high fuel costs, for example. At least 50 per cent. of those living in my constituency have no access to the gas network and must therefore rely on heating oil, which is expensive. Every time I have spoken to a Minister, written to a Minister or put a question to a Minister across the Chamber to point out that those people have no alternative, I have been told, "It's okay. We have a plan in place for people to have underground heating." The Government have all these new-fangled ideas for supplying something that people just cannot get. If there is no possibility of getting a mains gas service to a house in the first place, and if people live in a terraced house in the middle of nowhere with a postage-stamp back garden, for example, it will be impossible to lay half a mile of cabling to get them an alternative energy source.