From the end of the 'fifties to the beginning of the 'sixties there has been a virtual Crisis in the Countryside.

The House will recollect that in 1959 we had a major Crisis in the Countryside over the use of pesticides.

There will be a Crisis in the Countryside, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall.

However, there has been a lack of recognition so far in the debate of the Crisis in the Countryside, in farming and in the rural areas.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the way in which the cull is starting to make a deep impression on the Crisis in the Countryside.

As several of my hon. Friends have said, we face a genuine Crisis in the Countryside.

It is a Crisis of the Countryside, caused simply by the failure of Governments.

three quarters of them have no daily bus service; and services such as the health 362 service and those for the elderly are threatened by cuts which started under the previous Government but which he has continued against the background of a Crisis in the Countryside's basic industry.

Half the villages now have no schools; three quarters of them have no daily bus service; and services such as the healthservice and those for the elderly are threatened by cuts which started under the previous Government but which he has continued against the background of a Crisis in the Countryside's basic industry.

Is the right hon. Gentleman saying in all honesty that his former Administration take absolutely no responsibility for the Crisis in the Countryside in mid-Wales?

As my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) said, many people believe that Conservative politics were largely to blame for the Crisis in the Countryside.

It is fair to say that the issue fits into the general pattern of Crisis in the Countryside, with the decline in agricultural incomes and the threat to the British rural way of life.

There is no Crisis in the Countryside there, but, even so, the Government have tackled the problem.

Let me deal more generally with the Crisis in the Countryside.

I do not apologise for referring to the deepening Crisis in the Countryside, mentioned by the right hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. MacGregor).

I want to comment on the Countryside Crisis.

Bearing in mind the astonishing remarks made by the Prime Minister at the National Farmers Union conference - to the effect that there was no Crisis in the Countryside and that any trifling problems that farmers had could be dealt with by embracing the internet - could I ask the right hon. Lady to consider again the many requests that she has had for a debate on rural areas?

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister said that there is a real Crisis in the Countryside, but that there was much about which to be positive as well.

In view of the devastating Crisis in the Countryside, will the Government consider setting up a rural task force?

The Government give the impression that they have no understanding of farming, or of the continuous Crisis in the Countryside.

I do not entirely agree with everything that my hon. Friends suggested, but they may have a solution that would go some way towards getting the Government off the hook and preventing a clash with rural people that would result in a further Crisis in the Countryside.

It is sad that we are concentrating on what the Government consider to be a vote catcher, rather than on the real issues and the Crisis in the Countryside.

Tens of thousands of people are leaving the farming industry each year, so the Government would do far better to concentrate on alleviating the Crisis in the Countryside than on causing tension and dissension among Members by introducing this Bill.

There is a Crisis in the Countryside.

There is a Crisis in the Countryside - the worst of its kind for 60 years - in which every agricultural price is down, suicide rates in the farming community are up and a real sense of despair exists as to whether there will ever be better times ahead.

I am afraid that the Government are comprehensively failing our cities, and that failure serves only to worsen the Crisis in the Countryside that the rural White Paper was meant to address.

There is, however, nothing like enough to meet the scale of the Crisis in the Countryside.

The Government say that there is no Crisis in the Countryside, and that their White Papers are leading the way to solving the problems that exist.

The Crisis in the Countryside is real.

The issue we are debating is admittedly peripheral, given that we are debating it at a time of grave Crisis in the Countryside; but there should nevertheless be a Minister present to recognise the havoc that the Bill will cause.

Many people cannot understand why their Parliament has to discuss this measure today when there is a Crisis in the Countryside.

The House will appreciate the demands placed on the Prime Minister and his colleagues by this latest rail tragedy coming on top of the grave Crisis in the Countryside.

The Wales Office and the National Assembly take the Crisis in the Countryside seriously.

I understand that this debate is held against a background of Crisis in the Countryside.

The Crisis in Our Countryside compelled us to postpone that march, and I am sure I am not alone in saying how distasteful we find the decision to press ahead with the debate at this time in these circumstances.

Well before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, wrote in a recent article in The Times, "now the Government is responding to the sharpening, worsening Countryside Crisis by introducing as a measure the Bill to allow hunting with dogs to be abolished.

It is some two years since the Prime Minister said that there was no Crisis in the Countryside.

We all know that the Crisis in the Countryside did not begin in February of this year.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, and indeed I thank the Government for the Statement yesterday on the Crisis in the Countryside.

When the Crisis in the Countryside is debated, the Government Benches tend to be thinly populated.

We wanted an Opposition day debate because of our alarm - which is increasing day by day - about the fact that, in some ways, the response to the Crisis in the Countryside does not measure up to the scale of the problem.

If they have another matter at the forefront of their thinking in the next few weeks, they will fail to tackle the Crisis in the Countryside and earn the condemnation of those who live and work there.

During the Crisis in the Countryside, I have not engaged in petty politics as to whether the Government did something a day or two late or a day or two early.

The Minister will be aware that the Bill does little to tackle some of the unfairnesses that are emerging from the Crisis in the Countryside.

It is difficult, in the light of the Crisis in the Countryside, to see why the rate relief assistance should be confined to food shops.

I hope that she appreciates the depth and urgency of the Crisis in Our Countryside.

The impact of the Crisis in the Countryside is very deep and goes beyond the immediate families and into the communities.

As we speak, the Crisis in the Countryside deepens.

The Crisis in the Countryside caused by foot and mouth disease cannot wait until politicians find time to consider the problems at their convenience.

This debate is probably the last chance that Parliament will have for more than three months to examine the Crisis in the Countryside.

I beg to move, That this House deplores the Government's neglect of the continuing Crisis in the Countryside; condemns its failure to produce any programme for the recovery of agriculture and its refusal to accept the need for a full independent public inquiry into the foot and mouth epidemic; further deplores the absence of policies to maintain adequate services in rural areas, including post office and shops, and its failure to address public concern about rural crime; and regrets the pursuit of tax policies which are especially damaging to rural communities and the unsustainable planning policies which continue to threaten greenfield sites.

I shall now move on to other aspects of the Crisis in the Countryside.

Neither the Labour nor the Liberal Democrat amendments refer to crime as part of the Crisis in the Countryside.

If I have one criticism of the framing of the motion - of course, I do not - it is that we have talked too much as if there is a great insulation between the Crisis in the Countryside and metropolitan England and London.

It is difficult for the Government, who are attempting to do their best to deal with a Crisis in the Countryside, to face criticisms that we do not care and that we are deeply hostile to the countryside and to country people.

I refer the Leader of the House to the ongoing Crisis in the Countryside as a result of the foot and mouth epidemic.

Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next expects to meet representatives of the farming community to discuss the Crisis in the Countryside.

I do not want another Crisis in the Countryside.

The Crisis in the Countryside is still acute.

The Crisis in Our Countryside has led to an increase in mental health problems, such as the well documented tragedy of farming suicides, which touched my constituency in north Somerset when a father and son, whom I knew well, committed suicide.

notes that British agriculture is in the throes of its worst recession since the 1930s; regrets the burden of regulation imposed on farms and other rural businesses; expresses concern about the lack of affordable housing and the strain on public services in rural areas; and calls upon the Government to acknowledge the gravity of the Crisis in the Countryside and to address effectively and urgently the problems faced by rural communities.

I beg to move, That this House recognises that the livelihood of millions of British people depends on the rural economy; notes that British agriculture is in the throes of its worst recession since the 1930s; regrets the burden of regulation imposed on farms and other rural businesses; expresses concern about the lack of affordable housing and the strain on public services in rural areas; and calls upon the Government to acknowledge the gravity of the Crisis in the Countryside and to address effectively and urgently the problems faced by rural communities.

Also, the one episode in particular that precipitated the Crisis in the Countryside would have to be the BSE disaster, over which his Government presided.

The Crisis in the Countryside, about which we have heard a great deal, exists and is important.

I think that we can wait another 12 weeks given that we have waited several years for Government action to address what we all accept is a Crisis in the Countryside regarding bovine TB.