Labour tries to mend fences with rural plan

Labour yesterday sought to build bridges with rural Britain with the publication of a wide-reaching five-year plan.

The strategy, from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is the latest in a series of departmental plans being driven by No 10. The aim is to encourage long-term policy making to run beyond single parliamentary terms.

The department promises farmers a radically simplified system of subsidies which will eradicate bureaucracy and allow them to respond to what their customers want.

New planning guidance will counter the lack of affordable local housing, while parish councils will be given the power to issue fixed penalty fines for litter, graffiti, fly posting and dog offences.

The measures - coupled with strategies to boost energy efficiency and retailer recycling - come a month after Parliament inflamed parts of rural Britain by voting for a ban on fox-hunting.

The plan also encompasses the clean neighbourhoods and environment bill - announced in the Queen's speech - which gives local authorities greater powers to deal with such issues.

The strategy, Delivering the Essentials of Life, seeks to "accelerate Britain's transformation from environmental laggard to environmental leader", the environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, said.

The measures include:

· Plans to encourage the public to recycle with the help of supermarkets and councils. Some £1.2m will be spent on pilot schemes at supermarkets; and £5m on pilots by local authorities - including discount vouchers to local gyms, £10 payouts, and small reductions in council tax.

· A change to planning guid ance to enable more affordable rural houses to be built. The rural exceptions policy, which allows rural social housing to be built on small sites where not normally permitted, will be retained and new guidance brought in that land can be designated specifically for rural social housing.

· As part of the common agricultural policy reforms, a single farm payment scheme to encourage farmers to produce what the consumer wants, not what has the greatest subsidy, while being linked to environmental conditions. Farmers can also get bigger payments if they sign up to an environmental stewardship scheme which requires them to protect natural resources such as water and soil. Bureaucracy will be slashed with the introduction of a "whole farm approach" which aims to vastly improve coordination of farm inspections and ensure farmers only deal with "one form, one date, one payment and one face".

· Action to make homes, schools and workplaces more energy efficient - including the continuation until 2008 of the £50m community energy programme which funds improvements to local authority housing.

· The clean neighbourhoods bill, which allows parish councils to issue fixed penalty fines for litter, graffiti, fly posting and dog offences and gives local authorities the right to remove abandoned cars.

· The animal welfare bill - again in the Queen's speech - which allows pet owners to be prosecuted if suffering has not happened but is inevitable.

· The establishment of Environment Direct, an internet-based service providing information on energy efficiency, to be running by 2006.

· "Carbon neutral" travel for Defra (see panel).

Welcoming the strategy, Tony Blair said: "The plan helps individuals make their own green decisions. It shows that we are committed to domestic actions to match our international effort."

But Mike Childs, campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, stressed that "hard-pressed" local authorities needed increased resources to clean up neighbourhoods.

Tim Bennett, the president of the National Farmers' Union, welcomed the promise of better regulation. But the Countryside Alliance was more cynical, with its chief executive, Simon Hart, questioning why a strategy was being produced three years after the last "glossy report".

The route to going green

When Margaret Beckett, the cabinet's great survivor, revealed yesterday that Defra's green plans include a "carbon neutral" travel policy reporters speculated that whenever she takes a plane her deputy, Alun Michael, will be forced to go by bike for a year.

Mr Michael joked that his love of walking on the Brecon Beacons would surely count. But leading by example is serious. In 2005 the department will "offset" all carbon emissions from official travel by investing in projects like biogas cookingn in Nepal or solar-powered Bangladeshi homes.

The scheme, set to start in April and initially due to cover air travel only, means Defra will seek to offset greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects that either reduce the emission of carbon dioxide or remove an equivalent amount. But the amount of money which will be donated per flight - and a start date for offsetting rail and road travel - are not yet known. Mrs Beckett's family caravan is not affected.