‘Unfair’ policies hit people in the country, say MPs

Countryside communities in England suffer from a “rural penalty” that the government is not doing enough to address, a parliamentary report warns today.

People in the country face higher house prices and more expensive council tax, but receive less government funding for services like schools. They also suffer housing shortages and poor mobile phone and broadband coverage, says the report from the cross-party Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee.

‘Deeply unfair’

The committee brands the lower level of state funding for rural areas “deeply unfair” and warns that government policies do not reflect the difficulties of providing services to populations who may be thinly spread over areas with relatively undeveloped infrastructure.

Although the coalition launched a rural communities policy unit in 2010 to “rural-proof” the government’s activities, the committee found that “much more needs to be done” if the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is to meet its aim of “fair, practical and affordable outcomes” for residents and businesses in the countryside.

Higher tax, poorer services

Rural areas make up 86 per cent of England and around one-quarter of the population – 12.7 million people live in the countryside. Over half a million businesses in rural areas make a £200bn contribution to the national economy.

But today’s report finds:

“Rural communities pay higher council tax bills per dwelling, receive less government grant and have access to fewer public services than their urban counterparts.

“The government needs to recognise that the current system of calculating the local government finance settlement is unfair to rural areas in comparison with their urban counterparts and take action to reduce the disparity. This ‘rural penalty’ is not limited to public services, it is also acute in many areas of infrastructure, not least the provision of high-quality broadband.”

The committee highlighted funding for rural schools, which was less than half the level per pupil for urban areas in 2012/13. It warned that councils’ ability to support smaller schools in rural areas is being hampered by a government move to reduce flexibility in allocating funds.

Broadband services in rural areas have “ridiculously slow speeds or no connection at all”, and the government’s target to roll out superfast broadband to 90 per cent of rural areas looks set to be delivered late, says the report.

The absence of mobile phone coverage in large parts of the countryside is “unacceptable”, with almost 70 per cent of England lacking 3G coverage from all four major providers and nearly 20 per cent still waiting to for 2G. A £150m government-backed project to help 60,000 premises in mobile phone “not-spots” is a “significant reduction” from the original aim of extending coverage to 6 million people, says the report.

Bedroom tax hits harder

Meanwhile, the average rural house price is £30,000 higher than its urban equivalent, despite lower wages in the countryside.

And rural areas may be “disproportionately affected” by the government’s cuts in housing benefit for claimants with spare rooms – dubbed the “bedroom tax” by critics. A shortage of social housing available in villages – which may have only a handful of affordable properties – could see families forced to move long distances away from their home areas, friends and schools, even if they play a vital role in their community, the committee warns.

The report calls for all settlements of fewer than 3,000 people to be excluded from the under-occupancy policy.

And the committee questions the merit of Chancellor George Osborne’s help to buy policy, designed to help first-time buyers to get a mortgage, which it warned “has the potential to make the situation worse” by pushing up rural property prices even further beyond the reach of local people.

‘Desperate’ need for housing

Committee chair Anne McIntosh said: “Rural England desperately needs more affordable housing yet the government’s housing policies pay insufficient regard to the needs of rural communities.

“Failure to provide more of the right housing, at the right price and in the right place will exacerbate the existing problems of unaffordability and inequality in parts of rural England.”