Dunne elected as Co-Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group for Rural Services

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne has been elected as co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Rural Services, to help lead the debate on a range of issues affecting rural areas.

Mr Dunne was elected alongside co-Chair Rebecca Pow, MP for Taunton Deane, to lead the cross party group of MPs and Peers to champion the needs of rural communities.

Mr Dunne said: “I was very pleased to be elected as co-Chair of the APPG for Rural Services, alongside my good colleague Rebecca Pow MP, to help ensure rural communities can come together and provide a strong voice in Westminster.

We know that providing effective services in rural areas can be expensive and difficult. So it is important we make Ministers acutely aware of the needs of rural communities.

Just last week Rebecca and I co-hosted the first Rural Vulnerability Day in Parliament, where we were able to discuss a range of issues impacting on rural people and rural communities. Through the All-Party Group we will be able to investigate many of these issues in more detail and present our findings to Ministers. Importantly we will also look at examples of innovative responses being introduced by the service providers.”

Graham Biggs MBE, Chief Executive of the Rural Services Network which provides the secretariat to the All-Party Group, said “We are delighted that Philip Dunne and Rebecca Pow have agreed to lead this important group. We have worked with both of them in the past and look forward to doing so again. They both have great knowledge and experience of rural services issues from their own constituencies and both are committed to ensuring that rural issues are given due attention.”