Mary Creagh

I am not giving way, because I have only eight minutes to respond to the debate. The Conservatives’ former Prime Minister explicitly said that there was a deliberate policy of taking money away from deprived inner-city areas and giving it to rural areas. This Government are cleaning up the mess that they made, and we have stabilised the economy. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) is not in his place, because I cycled the 25 miles there from the New Forest during the covid lockdowns. He talked a lot about the 61 bus, but he did not mention anything about the rail fare freeze. His constituents will enjoy the freezing of rail fares, as well as the freezing of prescription charges, £150 off energy bills and the driving up of wages. What did the Conservatives do on each of those issues to help people in rural communities? They voted against each and every one of those measures. They left the health service on its knees, our schools were crumbling and they crashed the economy. We have done more in 18 months than they achieved in 14 miserable years, including delivering cheaper mortgages and new rights for workers, and lifting half a million people out of poverty. I want to come back to bus routes, because under the Conservatives and Lib Dems, bus routes in England declined by 50% after 2010. Some 8,000 services were slashed on their watch. We have taken immediate action through the Bus Services Act, which includes provision to support the socially necessary bus services that are so important in rural areas. I am grateful to have the bus Minister sitting next to me, and we have maintained the national £3 bus fare cap. [Interruption.] Members are shouting from a sedentary position, but there was no cap under the Conservative Government.[Official Report, 12 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 5WC.](Correction) We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) about the problems of rural crime. During the 14 years of Conservative Government the recorded crime rate in rural areas of England and Wales increased by 32%. Our rural communities paid the price for the Tories being asleep on the job, and the 20,000 police officers that they and the Liberal Democrats cut in 2010. We are ensuring that rural communities will be better protected from the scourge of rural crime, such as equipment theft, livestock theft and hare coursing, which we know devastate communities, farming and wildlife. That is why we have collaborated with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office to deliver a renewed rural and wildlife crime strategy, which was published last November. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) asked about waste crime, and I have visited the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) to see the fly-tipping there. We know that waste crime blights our rural communities and undermines legitimate businesses. The last Government let waste gangs and organised crime groups run riot, with incidents rising by 20% in their last five years, but we have announced what are we going to do.