A fair deal for rural Britain

DEPRIVATION is hardly confined to the countryside, as a visit to almost any inner-city areas will confirm. But the difference between urban and rural poverty is that, during 13 years of Labour government, while inner cities saw regeneration cash thrown around like confetti – all too often, to little effect – rural Britain was largely ignored.

Even for New Labour, there were few votes in the countryside, which is why it is up to the Conservatives, supposedly the natural party of country life, to try to redress this imbalance.

So worried are Tory Ministers about their party’s image, however, that the concerns of traditional supporters are too often ignored. Which is perhaps why it has taken so long for the Government to come up with a credible plan for ending decades of underfunding in the countryside.

Indeed, so long has the fight lasted that many of those campaigning for fairer funding have despaired of achieving their goal. And this is in spite of the clear injustice of rural services getting less money when the cost of supplying them is so much greater because of the huge distances and lack of transport links.

The Government’s proposal to bring extra money into the countryside, through reforming the way in which business-rate cash is distributed, is a sensible idea. The lack of detail involved, however, is a reminder that Ministers have spoken before of their good intentions on this issue, intentions which have all too seldom borne fruit.

And with Tory Ministers likely to face the criticism that they are rebalancing the economy in the wrong direction, favouring their own supporters at the expense of the rest of the country, the question will be whether they can hold their nerve under fire.