The government has been told rural communities are "running out of patience" by the Country Land & Business Association's (CLA) president, Mark Tufnell, in a speech to the organisation's annual Rural Business Conference.

With Environment Secretary Dr Thérèse Coffey in attendance, Mark called the delays to the rollout of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes "unacceptable," comparing the lack of clarity on payment rates to buying "something from the shop without knowing the price." 

Mark, who stressed the CLA's tradition of having a "constructive" relationship with government, said confidence in the scheme's success is on the brink of "disappearing forever" across the farming industry.

The CLA's president also criticised the government's track record in supporting rural businesses across the country, pointing towards a planning regime that seems "designed to hold the rural economy back," a lack of affordable housing driving away young people, and infrastructure and connectivity preventing many from even "operating in the 21st century".

Mark called on the government to match the ambitions of rural business owners across the country, adding that 12 years since the Conservatives came to power, he cannot see how the policy landscape has improved. "In some cases," according to Mark, "it is worse."

In the first Rural Business Conference since the Conservative Party's repeated leadership contests, Mark said: "There is nothing Conservative about holding rural businesses back.  There is nothing Conservative about letting rural communities fail."

Mark closed his speech by welcoming the recent creation of government's new rural economic growth minister under the Truss-led government, but criticised the new government for scrapping the position within a matter of weeks.

The speech follows a CLA survey published earlier this year which shone a light on the cracks in the 'blue wall'. The opinion poll of the five most rural counties in England put the Conservatives just two points ahead of Labour, indicating a 7.5 per cent swing from the 2019 general election. The by-elections in Tiverton and Honiton were seen by many as a warning shots fired by rural voters.

The CLA recently contributed to an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) report that set out an economic blueprint to revitalise the rural economy, potentially to the tune of £43bn. The report concluded that no government in recent memory has had a program to unlock the economic and social potential of the countryside. Decades of neglect have left the countryside in a state of stagnation with a 19% productivity gap between the rural economy and the national average.

The Rural Business Conference is the CLA's flagship annual event, normally attended by ministers, shadow ministers and leaders from other parties. This year's conference was attended by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Dr Thérèse Coffey, as well as farming minister Mark Spencer, and leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey.