Rural eyes will as ever be focused on the role of Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where the nod has gone to Angela Eagle – a direct promotion from her recent role as Minister of State in the Department, although she spent a short spell away as Security Minister after Starmer’s last-ditch mini-reshuffle in June.

The Countryside Alliance held its annual ‘Rural Oscars’ awards ceremony on Wednesday 8 July at the House of Lords in London, kindly hosted by Lord Hart of Tenby. The event was attended by both MPs and Peers, as rural businesses from across the UK were crowned champions across a range of categories, including best local food and drink, best butcher, best pub, best rural enterprise, and best village shop or post office.

Just one month ago, the Alliance highlighted growing concern that graziers could be left facing an impossible choice between retaining their ponies and maintaining commercially important herds of cattle and sheep. We argued that the government should implement the recommendation in the independent Fursdon Review to exclude ponies from overall stocking density calculations when requiring reductions for environmental purposes.

On 15 July the government announced it will do exactly that.

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