Richard Foord

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. My constituency of Honiton and Sidmouth is predominantly rural. Residents live in villages, small towns and hamlets, rather than urban centres. It is classified as such by the Office for National Statistics—that is, as a rural or rural town constituency. Of course, the people I represent do not need to consult the Office for National Statistics to know that, because they need only look in their wallet. A Department for Transport survey found that people living in rural villages and hamlets travel about 2.5 miles for every mile travelled by residents of an urban area. Put simply, rural life is more expensive. People pay more for journeys to school, work, the shops and essential services. Fuel costs more in rural areas. A UK Government road fuel review found that rural motorists typically pay between 1p and 2p more per litre because there are fewer filling stations and less competition. The Countryside Alliance estimates that rural households spend between £700 and £800 more each year on fuel than their urban counterparts. And of course there are alternatives in urban settings as public transport is much more readily available. In many parts of Devon, public transport simply is not an option. Let me take, for example, the West of England rail line in east Devon. Its services were reduced by 50% for months across the autumn, and it desperately needs investment—a passing loop—to enable services to run on time. Regular public transport on trains and buses is not an option. Many villages have no bus service at all. The rural fuel duty relief scheme currently applies to just 21 areas across the UK. The Liberal Democrats propose that it should be expanded to 20 new areas to support motorists in rural communities. A Government assessment in 2013 concluded that the original scheme was successful in keeping pump prices down in, for example, North Devon, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) identified. For isolated and rural communities across the UK it is imperative that the Government act on their past advice and extend the scheme to tackle the systemic disadvantages faced by rural residents.