Prime Minister David Cameron has this week attempted to prove his countryside credentials, having incurred the wrath of the Countryside Alliance for pressing ahead with the HS2 high speed railway programme and facing accusations that he is allowing an economic rift to grow between town and country. Mr Cameron engaged with rural MPs and appeared on the BBC's Countryfile programme to talk about issues facing farmers in Britain.

Earlier in the week the prime minister was urged to implement measures which would end the growing divide between town and country by a delegation of MPs from rural constituencies. Over the course of talks in Downing Street, the MPs warned Mr Cameron that his policies are “short-changing rural areas.”

The rural MPs, from the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on rural services, said on Monday that rural residents receive lower wages and pay more council tax than those in urban areas, but also benefit less from public spending on transport, education and healthcare services. The decision to go ahead with the controversial HS2 project, whilst in rural regions public transport is being slashed has served to enrage country-dwellers, who see it as symptomatic of a government which does not live up to its claims to speak for country-dwellers.

Commenting on the grievances of rural communities and the problems of rural exclusion, Dan Rogerson MP, the group’s vice chair, said, "Time and again we have found that the funding formula for public services do not account for factors unique to rural areas. They are peripheral areas, with sparse communities and quite often an ageing population. On transport, it costs much more to fund bus services that are low usage, but they are no less of a lifeline to rural areas than in urban areas, sometimes more of a lifeline."

Graham Stuart, an MP from Yorkshire, who chairs the APPG, added to his colleague’s criticisms, stating, "In tough times it is essential that we move to a fairer allocation of limited public resources. Over recent years public spending has been skewed so as to advantage urban areas and leave rural communities in the cold. We must now make a start in putting this right."

He explained, "People in rural areas earn less on average than those in cities, pay council tax which is £100 higher per head and then see government grants to urban areas 50 per cent higher than those in the countryside.”

The MPs said Mr Cameron was “extremely sympathetic.” Nevertheless, there seems to be little will in government to increase funding for schools, public transport or healthcare services in the countryside, following austerity cuts to local councils. Mr Cameron’s own constituency of Whitney is in rural Oxfordshire, though it remains unlikely the APPG’s message will yield results.

Cameron’s comments incite response from Compassion

Appearing on the BBC’s Countryfile program last week, Cameron also opined on the upshot of the new European cage ban, which outlawed battery cages in Europe from the start of the year. Despite the fact that the UK joined the list of non-compliant producers in January, David Cameron said he thought British producers had been too hasty in implementing changes to higher welfare systems.

British officials made the shock admission to the European Commission earlier in the month that around 30 producers had failed to move to higher welfare systems and continue to produce eggs from illegal cages. Politicians and industry voices had been outspoken about the inability of other states to implement the new law in time, though the deadline had been in place for over 12 years. However, since the revelation, only animal welfare groups in the UK have expressed concern at the effects the betrayal is having on compliant producers in the country.

Britain and Sweden have acted ahead of the rest of the EU in banning gestation crates for pregnant sows, a move which will be rolled out across Europe from January next year. Speaking to Countryfile on Sunday, Cameron said, "There has been a tendency in Britain, and all governments have done this, to jump into putting the changes [in place] in advance of the actual legal necessity and, as a result sometimes we’ve actually exported, for example a lot of our pig production, to other European countries. But if we’d put in place the changes at the same time as others, our pig farmers would have had a more level playing field."

As well as flying in the face of his colleague Caroline Spelman’s calls for British producers to make the most of the high welfare, high quality associations of the “made in Britain brand,” Cameron’s comments piqued animal welfare campaigners, who described them as “A kick in the teeth to all those who work tirelessly to improve the welfare of millions of farm animals.”

Farm Animal Welfare group Compassion in World Farming said it was “disappointed” by the prime minister’s lack of support for UK producers who, working with resounding popular support, have brought in higher welfare systems ahead of the legal obligatory time and are subsequently leading the way in farm animal welfare.

Compassion in World Farming’s Chief Policy Advisor, Peter Stevenson, rebuffed Cameron’s intimations, "I share the Prime Minister’s concerns that British farmers should not be subjected to unfair competition. However industry figures show that the UK ban on sow stalls, which came into force in 1999, added just 2 pence to the cost of producing a kilo of pig meat.”

He continued, “There were many other reasons that British pig farmers’ costs were so much higher than those of their continental competitors at the turn of the century – the main factors being, the then strength of sterling, and also the fact that we had, because of BSE, banned the use of meat and bone-meal in animal feed, whereas the continent had not yet introduced such a ban. The sow stall ban cannot be blamed for putting British pork producers at a serious disadvantage."

Badger cull will involve “No end of difficulties”

Cameron also acknowledged that implementing the two pilot badger culls which will go ahead later in the year as part of the government’s bovine TB control policy will result in “no end of difficulties,” though he expressed his continued support for the cull.

A strong advocate of ‘tough love’, Mr Cameron said that the cull opponents often forget that badgers are also suffering from the “terrible disease”. He said, what we want is healthy cattle but we also want healthy badgers and I think sometimes the critics of the culling trials forget that in the end it’s the badgers who are also suffering from this terrible disease as well.”

However, one of the grounds on which the cull has been criticised is that, as markspeople tasked with carrying out the killing will not be able to tell whether or not a badger is infected, many healthy badgers will be shot.  

Support for hunters

Mr Cameron, a self-described “country boy,” also expressed support for repealing the hunting ban on Countryfile, calling the legislation “pretty bizarre.” This has been seen as distasteful, coming as it did during the same week as seven badger baiters were given custodial sentences in York. In a possible rapprochement with Countryside Alliance members alienated by the effects of other policies on rural Britain, the prime minister repeated his promise of a free Commons vote on a repeal of the ban on hunting with dogs.

However, Joe Duckworth, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, questioned the veracity of Cameron's claims. He said, ”David Cameron is the one man who can make a vote on repeal happen yet he doesn’t appear to want to put his money where his mouth is. He is happy to state he wants a free vote yet very reluctant to make it happen and one has to question why this is. The obvious answer is because Mr Cameron knows repealing this legislation would be a deeply unpopular move and flies in the face of public opinion. It also goes against the will of the Parliament where there is currently a majority in favour of keeping the Hunting Act in place."

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