Minister hails ‘ track record of delivering’
THE Conservative Party has a “natural understanding” of rural areas as shown by the number of constituencies outside of cities which are blue, the Environment Secretary has said.
George Eustice, who has a family background in fruit farming, claimed that his party had a “very long track record in representing rural communities”.
“If you look at local government, Conservative councils have got a strong track record of delivering for those communities with good candidates, who really understand their area,” he said.
“Nationally, the Conservative Party has always had a much stronger affinity and understanding with rural communities, whether that’s agricultural communities, where we’ve got people like me, but many others besides, who have been farmers themselves and so understand that particular area already and some of the other challenges of rural communities.
“If you’re an MP representing a rural seat, you understand many of those other issues around transport links, bus services, rural poverty, housing issues. It’s something where you develop a natural understanding and therefore that feeds into your agenda and government.
“It’s probably for those two reasons, principally because the Conservative Party is diversely spread across the country, and it’s got a long track record in representing rural communities.”
He admitted it was unsurprising that the Labour Party would want to focus on rural seats.
Mr Eustice, a former press secretary to David Cameron during his tenure as Leader of the Opposition, said: “I think it’s always been the case that every party, if it has ambitions to form government, has to try to do better in areas where it’s traditionally been a bit weaker.
“And so the Conservative Party has been no different in that regard, in order to form government we have to do well in urban areas that have more of a Labourvoting tradition.”
But he added: “If you look at the electoral map, it is very much the case that rural communities have turned more to the Conservatives to address their concerns, and I think we’ve a track record of delivering for them as well.”
Mr Eustice said his focus was on delivering for rural communities as the UK leaves the European Union, adding: “Agriculture is a really big area where we want to leave behind the highly bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy and actually move to something that I think makes much more sense.”
He stressed there was a balance to strike in the Conservatives’ new planning policy, which some rural communities have said would turn them away from voting Tory.
“If you get the balance right between making sure there’s an obligation on local authorities to build housing need, but then to simultaneously give them much more say over where that housing should go, the design of the housing so that it is in keeping with the area, then I think you can make good progress,” he added.
Mr Eustice said the Government’s rural policy was connected to levelling up, pointing to high- speed broadband as one example.
“In this new digital age that we live in, it is possible for people to do more and more meetings over an internet connection,” he said.