Andy Burnham is set to enter Downing Street next week facing fresh calls to put the countryside at the centre of the UK’s economic strategy, after Labour backbench MPs and the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) published a blueprint aimed at revitalising rural Britain.
Produced by the Labour Rural Research Group (LRRG), which includes more than 40 Labour MPs, the report argues that a Burnham government should make rural economic growth a key priority rather than treating the countryside as an afterthought. The CLA supported the work, describing it as a ready-made plan for the incoming prime minister.
CLA president Gavin Lane said: “For too long, rural Britain has felt seen not as a partner in a united national mission, but as a target – most starkly through inheritance tax changes that have already collapsed investment in businesses up and down the country.
“Reversing that change is not a niche request; it is a precondition for the confidence that real investment requires.”
The report highlights mounting pressures on farming and rural businesses, including labour costs, planning restrictions, poor transport links, limited access to finance and housing shortages.
It argues these factors have contributed to rural productivity lagging behind the national average despite the countryside’s role in food production, energy, environmental management and economic growth.
Polling published alongside the report found two-thirds of the public believe government should give the rural economy greater priority, while 77% support increased investment in farming to improve food security. However, only 27% believe a Burnham government is likely to strengthen its support for rural communities.
Among its 27 recommendations are stronger 'rural proofing' across government departments, a dedicated rural innovation and productivity programme, expanded permitted development rights to encourage farm diversification and water storage, and long-term certainty for Environmental Land Management schemes.
James Naish, vice-chairman of the Labour Rural Research Group and lead author, said: “Rural communities shouldn’t be seen as peripheral to national renewal – they are places where growth can be generated, productivity unlocked and national priorities delivered, from food security, nature restoration and flood mitigation to new housing and energy generation.”
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, chairman of the group, added: “There is a clear opportunity to reset how Whitehall thinks about rural Britain.
“The answer is not to treat rural areas as places of decline or dependency, but as strategic environmental and economic assets capable of driving growth, strengthening resilience and helping to deliver the socio-economic change the country was promised.”
Alongside the report, Burnham has indicated he intends to pursue greater devolution, reform business rates and transfer more decision-making away from Whitehall.
While proposals including a land value tax and wider wealth taxes have been discussed by allies and commentators, they have not been confirmed as government policy. Business rates reform, with higher rates for large distribution warehouses and lower rates for high street businesses, is among the measures expected to feature in the new government’s agenda.
The publication also coincides with Defra’s recently launched 25-year Farming Roadmap. Announced just weeks before the expected change of prime minister, it remains to be seen whether the long-term strategy survives intact under Andy Burnham or whether ministers opt to reshape it to fit a new political agenda.
For many farming businesses looking for policy certainty, any shift in direction will be watched closely.
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