Rural Coalition: Letter to Secretary of State Defra

The Rural Coalition, wrote to the new Secretary of State at Defra on 16 September welcoming him to his new role and outlining our key priorities.

One of our key priorities is helping the Department to ensure effective rural proofing across government and that the rural voice is heard by your Cabinet colleagues and their Departments and built in to policies and their implementation at the start of the process.  As part of this, during the recent leadership election, we identified a series of questions to be addressed on the key issues affecting the future of rural areas of England and the businesses and people within them.  As the new Prime Minister and her Government develop their plans for the future, the Coalition has set out in the attached note what action it believes should be put in place across Government to respond to the issues we raised and to bring about real and positive economic growth and social change in rural England.