Opposition vies to keep countryside ‘champion’

Labour will call for the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) to be spared the axe as the Government slashes the number of quangos.

And the Liberal Democrats’ Environment Spokesman Andrew George will call for a U-turn over the decision to scrap the rural advocate, who worked alongside the CRC to voice the needs of the countryside within Government.

The Government says the CRC and the rural advocate are no longer needed because it is beefing up a rural policy unit within Whitehall, but critics say this will lack independence and risks silencing the needs of the countryside.

The scrapping of the roles has been widely criticised in the House of Lords, and today MPs will stage their final attempt to force the Government to change course during debate of the Public Bodies Bill in the Commons.

Shadow Environment Secretary and Wakefield MP Mary Creagh said: “The rows over planning and the forests sell-off, show how out of touch the government is on rural issues. The Government should be supporting rural families and businesses, by rolling out broadband for rural communities to create jobs.

“Instead, they are abolishing the independent voice for rural communities and scrapping the agricultural wages board.”

Mr George said: “Though we can tolerate bringing in-house the admin of Government grants with the work of the CRC, the maintenance of an independent rural advocate could prove crucial as the austerity measures hit.

“You can’t claim that ‘we’re all in it together’ if rural folk are ‘out of sight, out of mind’.”