The Government’s Industrial Strategy and the 25-year Plan for Food and Farming must unlock the investment potential of countryside in order to sustain rural economy through the potentially seismic changes of Brexit.

That’s the message rural business leaders will deliver to ministers today (Tuesday 6 December) at the CLA’s Rural Business Conference in Westminster.

CLA President and rural business owner, Ross Murray, will tell Defra Secretary of State Andrea Leadsom in front of over 400 conference delegates that the Government’s Industrial Strategy and the 25-year Plan for Food and Farming must unlock the investment potential of countryside.

Mrs Leadsom, a keynote speaker at the conference, will hear that if she and other Ministers fail to include the countryside in future political thinking then the economic uncertainties fuelled by Brexit and volatile agricultural prices could severely harm the prospects of vital investments being made across the rural economy.

The call for action follows concerns that business growth policies announced in the Autumn Statement focused on towns and cities but ignored rural businesses. CLA South West Director, John Mortimer, says one of the central aims of the conference is to ensure that government policy supports rural businesses in a pro-active and meaningful way.

“This conference will challenge us all - landowner, rural entrepreneur, politician and policy maker - to think differently about the roles we can play, individually and collaboratively, to ensure a strong future for the rural economy. We want to see the rural economy fulfilling its great potential by continuing to grow, with existing and new enterprises succeeding, creating new jobs for rural people and contributing more and more to UK plc. “

The CLA, which represents 32,000 landowners, farmers and rural businesses in England and Wales, is urging Government to set out a new tax roadmap for family businesses; to finish the job of reforming the planning system and to undertake regulatory changes that allow more rural businesses to enter into new markets - such as supplying energy to local customers.

Businesses based on rural land are vibrant, full of entrepreneurial energy and looking to the future. Our new report shows there are great opportunities for these small family businesses to boost the rural economy in the years ahead but it has never has it been more important to address the imbalance of investment in our countryside than it is today.

We want to see this reflected in Government policy and we are setting out a challenge – because the new Industrial Strategy and the 25 year plan for food and farming are the opportunity to address this imbalance and they must be taken,” said Mr Mortimer.