RORY PRESSES TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT FOR ASSURANCES ON HS2 DISRUPTION

Rory has requested assurances from Ministers within the Department for Transport that any disruption to services at Euston Station – the London station at which trains from Penrith and the Border arrive – as a result of the construction of the HS2 railway line, should be minimised, and to call for a coherent plan to avoid such disruptions to be put in place in advance.

Rory has called for clarity on the scale and effect of any disruption to the London destination, and indeed to the West Coast line that is so critical to the Cumbrian economy.

Rory said: “Potential disruptions that could have an enormously negative impact on our economy and livelihoods have been brought to my attention, and I have today written to the Minister of State, Simon Burns, to request his feedback on the concerns that constituents are raising. Finally we have along the West Coast a service that is reliable and efficient – everyone agrees on that – and we do not want to return to a time when Cumbrians and visitors to Cumbria could not access the county at the weekend. Rumours of potential closures at Euston Station are incredibly worrying, but we need to get our facts straight. That is why I have contacted Ministers for clarity. Clearly we need to confront the potential impact to Cumbrians of the building of HS2 well in advance, and I will be looking to monitor this very closely indeed.”

Rory also continues to press for a Westminster Hall debate on disabled access at railway stations, and continues to lobby Ministers for the overdue improvements to northbound platform access at Penrith Station.

RORY DEFENDS FARMS AND ESTATES IN PENRITH AND THE BORDER AGAINST NEW INHERITANCE TAX

Yesterday Rory defended farms and estates in Penrith and the Border, fighting against a new inheritance tax.

Rory had been appointed as a member of the Public Finance Committee, in charge of a detailed scrutiny of this year’s budget. Rory used his position to object to new proposals on estate tax, which he described as “highly damaging to the economy of Penrith and the Border and other rural areas.” The Minister responded to the speech by agreeing to review the policy and introduce a number of amendments in the next stage of the bill.

Rory said: “This issue matters because across the country an enormous amount of the investment made by estates and by farms is made by borrowing against existing houses; this is the key to enabling a vigorous rural economy. Unfortunately, the new policy, could result in a situation in which, understandably, estate owners and farmers chose either to retain their houses and not invest or sell their assets to make an investment which could cause other problems. That is why I am pushing for further consultation and amendments to the policy.”

Rory’s speech focused on the new section 162A and 162B of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 which he argues would disincentivise people from borrowing on their house and their estates to make business investments, because under this new clause this investment would become a tax liability.

Following Rory comments during the sitting of the Finance Bill Committee, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury praised Rory’s detailed focus on the interests of Penrith and the Border and agreed to table amendments to the legislation to address the issues.

Rory said, “It is a great privilege to serve on the committee and be able to look at the details of the budget. Overall I think the budget does good things for rural businesses, motorists and community pubs. I am delighted though that I was able to catch this small piece of legislation and have it amended because it would have had a serious impact on local investment.”

Forests in Cumbria

We live in what was largely ‘forest’: the medieval equivalent of the national park. Inglewood Forest between Penrith and Carlisle was sixty miles in circumference – if my maths is right 286 square miles. It touched the Forest of Allerdale. Add Nicolforest, in the North, and Gilsland, Geltsdale, Greystoke, and Skiddaw/ Thornthwaite, and more than half this entire constituency was a forest. This did not always mean trees: it included swamp, and heath (and where there were trees, it was not the carpet of Kershope and Kielder’s dark Alaskan sitka spruce, but ash, hazel, hawthorn, field maple, and Northern sessile oak), but it meant an area where you lived without normal legal rights, under the most extreme environmental restrictions and regulations.

For four hundred years and more, creating any house, or field, on the land in half of this constituency was illegal: buildings could be destroyed on sight. The trees were protected and could not be felled; the grass was protected and could not be grazed; the land could not be drained, fenced, or improved in any way; the turf, and the peat could not be extracted. Everything was to be kept as a wilderness, to preserve the ideal habitat for red deer, boar, hare, wolf, fallow deer, fox, marten, and roe deer; for rabbits, pheasant, and partridge. A vast bureaucracy of wardens, and deputies, constables, foresters, and underforesters, revenue collectors, surveyors, judicial inspectors, and rangers, was employed to protect the animals and plants. (In some ways – if not in the hunting – it prefigures the legal framework, purpose, and bureaucracy of the Lake District National Park).

It worked. Two hundred and fifty years after Inglewood was established, the deer flocks were so immense, that the King could kill over two hundred fallow deer in a single day. The impact of these restrictions on planning and land-use lasted a thousand years. Look left as you drive down the M6 to Penrith, and you see the rich, green land on the West bank of the Eden, between Lazonby and Armathwaite, which you expect to be densely settled with villages. But in fact, as I found two years ago, if you get yourself in trouble on the West bank of the river, you are in a seven mile stretch with barely a road or dwelling. This is the part of Inglewood forest, marked on sixteenth century maps as ‘barren park waste’.

The problem with the old forests was not the objective of protecting the environment, but the rigidity, and lack of space for humans. The cost was to the lives of communities. It was a good place for outlaws like Robin Hood, Adam Bell or William of Cloudseley. But farming was so restricted, that no incomes could be made from the land. The only employment was in being paid by the government to protect the landscape, or in supporting hunting and riding through it. No long-term communities developed, no traditions, no enduring history. The distinctive culture and the life of this constituency was then found almost entirely outside the forest, in the small farms of the Lake District Hills, with its tiny chapels, the Norse-influenced dialect, the unique funeral customs, and thousands of small independent owner-occupier statesman.

Locals, who lived on the edge of the protected land, were angry. King after King, from Magna Carta onwards, promised to reform the system. And finally, the reforms came. The powers of the rangers, and the managers were reduced; locals were granted limited rights to build small properties, to graze, and cultivate, and harvest; local figures became more closely involved in conservation and management. But the reforms were too slow, and Henry VIII eventually tore up the entire legislative and protective framework. The oaks were felled – many for props or fuel in the new iron mines in Cumbria. By the map of 1576, there was a belt of woodland near Carlisle but apparently the rest of the trees in Inglewood has gone. By 1630 John Aubrey describes an almost bare England, facing a crisis of timber. The wild boar, and the wolves had been long killed; the red deer moved North, and the fallow South, and the martens went with their habitat. You can see the trace of what followed in the fields from the air – not the curving Celtic lines, or the Anglo-Saxon common fields, striped like corduroy – but the straighter grid of early modern agriculture, with little connection to the medieval past.

Our ancestors created protected habitats in the forests, but they could not sustain them because they failed to bring together the different interests of farmers, plants, and animals. They failed to find a balance between wildernesses for recreation, farms for income, habitats, and villages for communities. That is still a challenge in National Parks today. Such a balance can be found, but it requires serious thought, flexibility, and long-term planning for different activities, including farming, worked out valley by valley. It cannot just be done through targets and legislation. In the long-term, the environment can only be protected if we understand the needs of that most peculiar ancient native species: the human. If we fail in the balancing act, we will not be able to protect humans or the environment. We will be left with what Camden saw when he visited Inglewood Forest in about 1600, ‘a dreary moor with high distant hills on both sides, and a few stone farm houses and cottages on the road side.’

Walking the Border

Recently, I forded the Solway from Bowness to Annan, hoping to examine
the border between England and Scotland. I stopped, two hundred yards
beyond the shore, in salt water, up to my waist. The tide had gone
out, and the distance to the Scotland was half a mile of sea. What
would I find on the other shore? One thousand eight hundred years ago,
the beach off which I had stepped was Rome, the shore up which I was
about to climb, was Barbarian. You would have stepped into the water
from a place with Roman senators, legions, taxes, magistrates, villas,
and temples, and have emerged into a place with no such things. One
land, one culture, one nation, and one state stopped at one shore, and
at the other, a completely different set of institutions, and powers
began.

But I was walking into Scotland in 2013. I saw no-one. The sea chopped
against a slag-heap of uneven boulders, glistening black,
algae-covered, just below the scum of bird feathers that marked the
high tide. On the joins between the coast and the fields, were
thickets of briars and nettles, raspberry bushes and hints of more
exotic pink-flowered aliens: the same plants which you can see in a
thousand railway sidings, builders’ yards, landfill sites, and canals.
After an hour, I met an eighty year-old Scottish farmer. He was polite
but he did not have much to say about the border, or the difference
between the two countries. And after five hours walk, I crossed the
border at Gretna, re-entering England, confused.

This was still a frontier, a thousand years after the Romans left.
Edward I marshalled his troops for the invasion of Scotland at Brough
by Sands, and died there. But after the collapse of Rome, the
differences between the two sides of the Solway had become less stark.
For seven hundred years, Cumbria had stretched to Glasgow, and
Northumbria to Edinburgh. Right up to the Highland line, both sides
had come to speak the same language – English – and wear the same
clothes. The rulers dominated a single culture of Knights, and monks.
At the river Sark, the frontier was disputed, artificial and recent.
But the border remained the place where geography met politics.

On one side, the Scottish state possessed absolute power, but at the
millimetre line of the border, its sovereignty ended. On this side of
the line, the English were citizens in their own nation – it was their
home, from which no-one had the right to drive them, and their
government had obligations towards them. Step one foot across the
mid-point of the Solway, and they were aliens. They were no longer
citizens, under their own parliament, judged by their own judges,
under their own laws. They could no longer choose their
representatives, and stand for office. In a single step, they were
under the jurisdiction of a different law and a different government.
At worst, enemies; at best, guests, and strangers.

But this was 2013. For the last four hundred years, a Briton had been
a citizen on both sides of the border, with a sense of their rights,
in their own country. Crossing other borders can feel dangerous, or
liberating: this was neither. And yet, Scotland was still a different
nation. Everyone I met on the far shore spoke with a Scottish accent,
had been educated in Scottish exams. They supported a separate
football league. If they were university students, they studied for
free, on a course that lasted four not three years; if they were
farmers they received grants for slurry tanks; if they were wind-farm
developers, they found it easier to build turbines. When they married,
almost all now wore kilts. The landholdings were bigger, and the
tenant farms much larger, than in Cumbria. The law of trespass was
different, and so were the licencing laws, and the verdicts available
to a jury. All these things combined to shape a quite separate culture
and identity, even though they too shopped at Tesco’s, spoke English,
watched the BBC, and grumbled about Westminster.

The sea, in which I was standing, was a frontier between two nations,
but not between two states. Not yet, anyway. But if Scotland votes for
independence, we will relearn much older forms of difference. Perhaps
you would not immediately need to remember your passport, or a new
currency. But suddenly, an Englishman in Scotland, or a Scot in
England, will be a guest, not someone at home. You will no longer be
the responsibility of the other country’s embassy abroad. If you were
a Scot arrested in London; or English and arrested in Edinburgh, you
would be under the custody of a foreign state, a foreign law, and a
foreign procedure, over which you had no say, or vote. Competition
between Scots and English in sport would have a different context and
tone. When we faced threats, or challenges, beyond our shores, we
would no longer respond as a single force. We could no longer love the
Highlands and London, as aspects of a single country. We could no
longer criticise each other in the same way; or take pride each other,
in the same way. Which is why, I hope the Solway will always remain,
as it is now, the ambiguous, opaque, tantalising, meeting of nations;
but never again a frontier to make us foreigners.

RORY CALLS ON CONSTITUENCY FOOD AND GROCERY BUSINESSES TO JOIN INDUSTRY CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT YOUNG UNEMPLOYED

Rory, has called on local food and grocery businesses to sign up to an industry campaign to support young unemployed people in his constituency.

The initiative, entitled Feeding Britain’s Future, will see thousands of unemployed young people from across the country go into farms, factories and stores for free skills training, and Rory wants businesses across Cumbria to get involved so that hundreds of youngsters in the area can reap the benefits.

Following the success of Feeding Britain’s Future “Skills for Work Week” in 2012, the Institute of Grocer Distribution has launched the 2013 campaign in an effort to tackle local youth unemployment. During September businesses across the industry’s supply chain will open their doors to provide free skills training such as CV workshops and interview role-plays for thousands of people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Some of the UK’s largest firms are already signed up to take part. Last year 70 businesses participated, in 700 locations covering every region in the UK. In 2012 the campaign provided 10,000 skills training opportunities with 98% of participants saying they felt more confident applying for a job. Working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus the national campaign unites the entire food and grocery industry in an effort to tackle youth unemployment.

Rory said: “This is a fantastic initiative for the young unemployed of Penrith and the Border, and I do sympathise very much with the great obstacles that stand in the way of our young people finding jobs in today’s financial climate. We boast so many successful local food and grocery companies, and this is the perfect chance for them to offer important skills training to young people. But for the local young unemployed to get maximum value from this scheme we need as many food and grocery businesses in the area to sign up, so I encourage all businesses in Penrith and the Border that fit the bill to sign up to this, which is a great idea.”

If young unemployed people are interested in Feeding Britain’s Future, they should ask at their local Jobcentre Plus.

Businesses interested in taking part can find out more at www.igd.com/feedingbritainsfuture

RORY HERALDS EU GREEN LIGHT FOR CUMBRIAN COMMUNITY BROADBAND ROLLOUT

On behalf of the local communities progressing their own community broadband projects in his constituency and across Cumbria, Rory has welcomed today’s news that the county has received Major Projects Approval from the European Commission. This represents another key milestone in the process of providing super-fast fibre broadband to Cumbrian homes and businesses, in conjunction with commercial supplier BT.

Rory said: “Overcoming this final hurdle is truly exciting, and we will begin to see improvements taking place in Cumbria. I am particularly keen to see community projects such as Fell End in my constituency – the first in the country to benefit from the Rural Community Broadband Fund – benefit from this. Fell End will be announcing their civil engineering partner at the end of this month, and will be the pioneering community broadband project in the UK, in a model that will be replicated across rural areas in the country. I now expect BT to announce a working plan relating to the areas they will cover and when, but we need to exercise caution and understand that this is a huge piece of engineering work that will not happen overnight. I will, however, continue to put pressure on government to extract from commercial suppliers the need for transparency, so that all our communities know where they stand, and know when their homes are going to be connected.”

Libby Bateman of Fell End Broadband also welcomed the news, saying:“This is the culmination of almost three years’ work on the improvement of broadband services for Cumbria. Rory has done a huge amount of work to ensure that Cumbria was first on the list as a pilot for Superfast Broadband back in 2010 and it is good to see that this work is coming to fruition. We are hugely grateful for all Rory has done, and call on him to continue pressing Connecting Cumbria and BT for announcements about their next steps for Cumbria.”

RORY BACKS CRAFTS IN BRAMPTON AND CUMBRIA

Rory took the opportunity to sit in on a creative wood carving workshop, run by local Cumbrian artist Alister Neville, whilst supporting the craft training done by Brampton Community Centre, and The Hut.

Brampton’s The Hut provides regular workshops, ranging from embroidery to woodwork. It has an excellent set of woodworking equipment and a ceramics’ kiln, in a purpose built workshop. It has brought leading Cumbrian craftspeople together to teach a new generation of students. And it offers the local community the opportunity to engage in an array of arts and crafts that wouldn’t generally be available to a town of its size otherwise.

Rory, who himself set up a crafts education programme within The Turquoise Mountain Foundation charity he established in Kabul in 2005, emphasised the enormous potential of crafts within an economy. Rory emphasised that 80,000 people in Britain are employed in crafts and that Cumbria’s history, reputation for tradition and beauty, and economy put it in a strong position to take a national lead in crafts. “Countries such as Italy,” he said, “have proved that crafts are not merely a hobby, but can be a major component of manufacturing and economic growth.”

Heather Tipler, who runs Brampton Hut said: “We are lucky to have this fantastic art and craft space in Brampton, which acts as a vital central hub for all sorts of activities for local, and even some not so local people. It means people don’t need to travel into Carlisle to take part in recreational activities and these days, when we need to think about sustainability, good local provision is really important for a community. The Hut is a wonderful resource, but the challenge remains to get it known and used more widely. Any help Rory can offer in this respect would be very welcome.”

Rory said: “This is such a fantastic project, and provides Brampton community with something very special. There is a huge potential for craft education in Cumbria, and I am very keen to ensure stronger links are put in place with the local school and other community groups, to really make the most of this valuable resource. I am looking forward to working with Heather Tipler to see if a development plan can be put in place – be it Summer classes or further weekly sessions – to open up The Hut to as much of Brampton and the surrounding area as possible.”

For further information on The Hut, please visit: www.bramptoncommunitycentre.org.uk/woodenhut.html

RORY CONTINUES CAMPAIGN FOR CUMBRIAN OUTDOOR INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITIES

Rory met with Chief Executive of the Institute for Outdoor Learning , Andy Robinson, in Penrith, as he continues in his campaign to make Cumbria a world-leader in outdoor pursuits and education.

Rory has recently played an integral role in efforts to setup a satellite centre for the National Mountain Centre in local college, Newton Rigg, that will provide local people with the chance to access the highest qualifications in the industry. This latest meeting with Andy Robinson focused on how to make Cumbrian businesses and schools work more closely together to make Cumbria the European leader in outdoor education. Andy explained how the Institute for Outdoor Learning, as a Cumbrian based national charity, would be well placed to offer support.

Rory said: “It was fantastic to meet with Andy and learn about the Institute for Outdoor Learning. I really believe that outdoor pursuits must be part of Cumbria’s future, and that given our landscape, there is no reason why the experiences and outdoor education we offer cannot match that of Switzeland or New Zealand. One thing I am really keen to see, is more opportunities for local young people to equip themselves with the skills and experience required to take advantage of the huge potential the outdoor industry still offers here in Cumbria. We must show Cumbrians that this is vital to our economic future, engage more schools, and encourage the thousands of businesses to work more closely with the local community and economy.”

Rory has proposed that they work over the next five years to bring far more Cumbrians jobs in the outdoor economy. He will be gathering headteachers, outdoor centres, businesses, and hotels to reinforce the great potential of the industry and convince people to work far more closely together. He is encouraging all interested parties within the local outdoor sector who would be keen to participate in such an event, to get in touch with him either by email on rory@rorystewart.co.uk or to contact his office on 01768 758 772.

RORY HOSTS FIRST DAIRY SCIENCE FORUM IN PARLIAMENT

Rory, and local Cumbrian vet David Black, this week hosted the first Westminster conference of the Dairy Science Forum, pledging to support scientific research into issues affecting the British dairy industry. The objective was to bring together the best in British science and the best in British farming to improve British Dairy. Rory – whose constituency includes the largest concentration of dairy producers in England – opened the Forum, by focusing on the ways science can contribute to the wellbeing of the dairy cow in Britain, public understanding of dairy and the productivity of the dairy industry in general.

David Black, of Cumbrian Paragon Vets, is the Chair of the Forum and used his seminar to focus on new methods of measuring animal welfare.

The Dairy Science Forum, established in 1975, is an ad hoc group of individuals, each well recognised and specialised in particular segments of the industry. It looks to better understand and disseminate the contribution of research and development to diary science and practice, as well as define future areas of activity that may enhance efficient productivity and improve the wellbeing of the cow to fortify a viable dairy industry.

The conference, held this week in Westminster and entitled ‘Collaboration, Communication and Innovation’ enabled useful discussions on what the key priorities for research and development in the dairy industry should be, how funding of this research and development can be better co-ordinated, as well as looking at how to improve uptake of technical and business information through better knowledge and exchange.

Rory said: “I’m enormously proud to be hosting this event in Parliament today. The Dairy Science Forum does great work for the industry and indeed the country. This science matters to us in enormously significant ways: economic productivity, animal welfare and public perceptions on animal welfare. I feel there is so much potential in this country within our agricultural industry. We are proud, as a government, that we are beginning to bring together a more focused strategy; but it is the people here at this conference today who can help us to bring various strands of development together in a meaningful way.”

David Black, Chairman of the Dairy Science Forum said: “We’re enormously grateful for Rory’s support. We aimed to help align the thinking throughout the dairy industry, by producing these strategy papers and identifying what we saw as the key issues. By coordinating R&D across UK and Europe more effectively and by addressing the need for excellent knowledge exchange at all levels of the industry, we are in a position to empower farmers and advisers with the information they need, and give access to evidence based science so that the UK industry becomes ever more vibrant and competitive in world markets. Addressing the needs of the animals themselves, and looking at the preferences of domestic animals, so that they are healthy and productive is the very basis of animal welfare – and at the same time education of the purchasers of products and the wider society results in a better understanding of the value of farming.“

RORY TO LAUNCH INAUGURAL ‘MOUNTAIN RESCUE DAY’ IN PARLIAMENT

Rory, yesterday chaired an important meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group, resolving to organise a ‘Mountain Rescue’ day in Westminster. This follows on from the success of Cumbria Day earlier this year. The event will raise awareness of the excellent work that Mountain Rescue groups do across the country. The APPG group welcomes members from both the England and Wales Mountain Rescue, and Scottish Mountain Rescue groups.

David Allan, Chairman of the England and Wales Mountain Rescue group, reported that following strong lobbying by the All Party group, Standard operating procedures for the deployment of Air Assets have now been agreed between the two organisations, making rescue operations much easier.
Rory said: “I’m thrilled to hear that communications between Mountain Rescue teams and Air Ambulances are improving and this issue now seems to be resolved. It’s important that these organisations are able to work together and communicate easily with each other. I am also committed to creating a really excellent awareness-raising event in Westminster later this year, which will bring together our Mountain Rescue charities from across the country in event that will showcase their dedication and bravery, and to get important points across to Ministers and officials.”
There are approximately 48 Mountain Rescue teams in England and Wales with a further 27 teams in Scotland. Team members are on call 24 hours a day, every day of the year. As volunteers, team members do not get paid and operations demand an extremely high commitment from all team members. There are over 1,100 rescues each year in England and Wales, over half of these occurring in the Lake District. A typical rescue may involve up to 20 team members for around 6 hours on average.

David Allan, Chairman of Mountain Rescue England and Wales said: “As on previous occasions this was a very useful meeting of great benefit to mountain rescue. The proposal to hold a ‘Mountain and Cave Rescue Event’ within the Houses of Parliament’ has the potential to be of enormous value in increasing awareness of the extensive role that the organisation now plays.It was also encouraging to find that the group will support the continuation of a government grant to mountain rescue to help with equipment and training and will seek to transfer the payment to the Home Office when the current arrangement through the Department for Transport expires. We look forward to a continuing good relation with the APPG and appreciate the time given by MPs and Members of the House of Lords to facilitate this.”