Sir Alec Shelbrooke

I think we need to get down to some basic facts today. For all this Government’s propositions, the reality is that people are feeling this on the ground. My constituency crosses the two counties of West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. North Yorkshire, which is Conservative-run, has seen millions of pounds of grant reductions, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith) touched on. A reduction in the services grant has knocked £14 million off the budget, and the fairer funding grant has knocked £20 million off it. The reality is that people are starting to wonder whether the Government understand rural communities and rural counties at all. Within North Yorkshire there are huge areas of deprivation, but they have now seen their money cut because the overall situation of the county knocks them out of the picture. A county like North Yorkshire can also be very sparsely populated and have unique challenges that mean that funding needs to be in place. That is against the backdrop of the attacks on farming. Ninety-two per cent of my constituency is rural or rural-related agricultural business. Through agriculture my constituency supplies £2.2 billion to the Exchequer and to GDP, and there has been huge concern and widespread disbelief at the policies that the Government have introduced. Even with the U-turns they knocked out just before Christmas, there is still huge uncertainty and, crucially—even with those U-turns—a lack of faith about investing in the future. We are talking not just about farms; there is the whole ecosystem of rural economies. I have been to businesses in my constituency who hire out plant machinery not just to farmers during the harvest but to help ensure that the countryside and landscapes are managed. North Yorkshire and parts of West Yorkshire, including where I live, have huge historic areas that people visit for tourism. If the countryside is not maintained, there will be less income from people coming to visit. People trying to make a living in these rural communities—as they have done for decades and centuries—have seen a huge attack from every angle.