Plaid Cymru MP calls for government-led campaign to halt rural population decline
A Plaid Cymru MP has called for a government-led campaign similar to Western Australia to encourage public service workers to look for jobs in rural Wales.
Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion Preseli, Ben Lake has warned that rural depopulation could lead to a “collapse of public services” without government intervention to retain young people in rural areas and attract workers from other parts of the world.
Western Australia launched a campaign last year targeting workers in the UK and Ireland, enticing them with promises of higher salaries, a better quality of life, and lower living costs.
WA government minister Paul Papalia said: “We are here to steal your workers by offering them a better life in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.”
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Mr Lake says there are “many benefits of rural living” in Wales and urged both the Welsh and UK governments to do more to attract key workers to rural communities.
His Ceredigion constituency recorded a 5.9% decrease in its population in the last census, while Pembrokeshire’s population remained stagnant.
Mr Lakes says his constituency is experiencing the “real consequences of depopulation” such as a shortage of GPs, the absence of NHS dental services in much of the region, school closures, and the lack of banking facilities.
Speaking in Westminster this week, he said: “This is a problem that we are very much living with today. What does it mean? In practice, it means that we are having very difficult discussions about, for example, the provision of public services and whether the school estate is sustainable for the future.
“We are talking about the lack of GPs and the fact that we do not have an NHS dentist any more in much of the constituency. There are three well-known banks in the UK that no longer have a single branch in the two counties that I represent. This is the real consequence of depopulation.”
“This is something that the UK Government can help with, and it should be on their radar. When the Cabinet Office looks at the range of risks it must monitor as part of its remit—something that the Public Accounts Committee discussed in the previous Parliament.
“It should look at how the discrepancies in demographic trends across these islands might have an impact on key public services, because in certain areas of rural Wales we will, I am afraid, see a collapse of public services. That will have a knock-on impact on more urban areas, which are themselves struggling with different demographic pressures.”
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He added: “This is an important debate, and I would ask the Home Office Minister to consider, as part of her important work in this new Parliament, the lessons to be drawn from experiences across the world. My honourable friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart, SNP) mentioned the experience of Quebec.
“As west Walians, we often turn on the radio to hear adverts from the Government of Western Australia trying to attract many of our young doctors and nurses to migrate to that part of the world. Are there incentives we could use to persuade more of our young people to stay or to attract those from other parts of the world?
“There are many benefits to rural living. Perhaps we could be more creative in grasping this problem by the scruff of the neck, because I fear we do not have much time left to deal with it.”
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Indeed, west Wales is also a very beautiful part of the world, as you know Ben. The solution to rural depopulation there and elsewhere in Cymru is smaller farms, on which much else depends. Careful identification of high quality soils, fruitful microclimates and diversification away from traditional land uses would contribute. Not their elimination but better husbandry of smaller flocks and herds, specialist and new breeds would improve the quality and variety of the food produced and the value of by-products. Downstream processing of rural products in the neighbourhood – timber and hemp as well as food – would employ… Read more »
What you write makes sense to me. Innovation, diversity, sustainability, green energy generation and distribution & generally playing to our strengths will require both Senedd backing and a good working relationship with Westminster.
The action UK takes, if any, will determine how much the UK system values our country.
Can we get assurances from the current administration at Cardiff Bay, that if positive action towards Cymru doesn’t come soon that the Welsh government will have to prepare to leave the UK and set up an independent Cymru ?
We cannot continue with this situation of acceptance of decline.
Let Cymru have our own sovereign wealth funds.
To make smaller farms viable you have to put a realistic price on produce. In the world we live in everyone wants a bargain therefore economics of scale always wins. We live in a culture where people will pay a lot of money to watch Oasis play but want to buy food at the lowest price.
The problems are not with farmers, but supermarkets forcing down the price they pay to farmers, that’s a problem going back decades. In more recent times the 48% of our food that we import annually is now affected by the tariffs created by Brexit. In the summer we produce as much as 80% of our food, in the winter that drops as low as 30%. If you want cheaper food don’t blame farmers, most of them are struggling, blame Supermarkets and primarily lying politicians that got enough voters to be the proverbial Turkeys voting for Christmas. Yes, Brexit is the… Read more »
I’m not blaming the farmers for anything. But I do think that economics have played a massive part in decreasing rural employment. I was in agricultural college in 1978 and when I left I came to Pembrokeshire to work on a farm as a cowman looking after 100 cows. We had to increase the herd to 120 to make it viable. A regular milk cheque meant steady cash flow. Scroll forward to today and I don’t know how many cows are now required to employ 1 man but I bet the price the farmer gets per litre has not increased… Read more »
Thanks, Old Curmudgeon. The only realistic price is that which covers the full costs of production, distribution, environmental impact and waste recovery. This demonstrates the complete failure of the so-called free market system. Realistic incomes (wages, pensions) must also be much higher. It is scandalous that the sixth wealthiest country in the world can apparently only afford pensions which are 38% of the European mean. For this we can thank the cheap food policy (let them eat cake), the mismanagement of the UK economy under monetarism (latterly neo-liberalist capitalism) and the skewed income distribution. All exacerbated by the extractivism inherent… Read more »
Make the jobs allowance so that only English speakers can also apply for them.There is a fundamental problem with pushing Welsh language – it limits the amount of people who can paply for jobs. The ‘shortage of GPs, the absence of NHS dental services in much of the region, school closures, and the lack of banking facilities’ are all about the lack of applicants because so many of these jobs ‘require’ Welsh language skills and they don’t. We all speak English – better to have GPS, teachers, banks and other mid level jobs filled rather than such jobs not being… Read more »
c*c oen.
One could easily find the same examples of these kinds of problems in other rural areas around the UK where the Welsh language isn’t a factor, and the simplest explanation is that the Welsh language isn’t the cause of these problems in Wales either.
Since when has the Welsh language been responsible for The lack of GPs, Dentists, School and Bank closures?
BTW do you know what Stockholm Syndrome is?