Rural cash campaign ‘welcomed’ at No 10

Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Rural Services, led a cross-arty group of MPs to Number 10 to discuss funding discrepancies between rural and urban areas with the Prime Minister.

Mr Stuart claims that people in rural areas earn less on average than those in cities, pay council tax which is £100 higher per head, and that Government grants to urban areas are 50 per cent higher than those in the countryside.

This is in spite of the higher cost of delivering services in sparse, rural areas than in cities.

Mr Stuart said Mr Cameron had responded favourably.

“The meeting was a great opportunity to take the rural fight to the very top of Government,” he said.

“The Prime Minister is sympathetic to our cause given that his constituency is the second most rural area in the south-east of England and I think we made some positive progress.

“Each MP highlighted several challenges that their rural constituents face, ranging from transport issues to the difficulties in supplying rural broadband. What is clear is that many rural communities have had to scrape by on what little funding that has been made available to them. I want this to change.

“We need to ensure that rural community needs are not swept under the carpet just because, in tough times, they have shown prudence and efficiency. The current funding system needs to be modernised, moving to a formula that is assigned so that allocations are always on the basis of need.”

He added: “At the end of this month I will be launching the Rural Fair Share campaign and hopefully, with the support of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, we can now make a start in putting the fairness back in rural funding.”