High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill

Lord Razzall Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, it is common ground across your Lordships’ House that many of our high streets are in a mess. Whether this is symptomatic of our rundown country, who of course knows? We see boarded-up shops and closed pubs and post offices—and, obviously, the sub-post offices have not been helped by the Horizon scandal. We now see often an excess of estate agents and—dare I say it?—antiques shops.

I cannot compete with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and the Champs-Élysées, but I can say that not every high street is in a mess. My own high street in Tisbury still has a thriving butcher and bread shop as well as a small supermarket and a hardware store and two thriving pubs—so all is not lost in Tisbury.

Our high streets have continued to deteriorate over the past 20 years, despite a number of initiatives by the Government. It was as long ago as 2011 that Mary Portas came up with her 25 recommendations to deal with the problems of our high streets. If you look at the list of recommendations, you will be hard pushed to say how many of them have been effectively implemented. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitby, indicated, and the noble Lord, Lord Mair, touched on, a number of funds have been established: the future high streets fund, the town centre fund and the local growth fund—to name but three. Have they really done anything significantly to improve the status of our high streets?

Rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the Labour Benches, my party will not oppose the Bill, but it fails to address, as a number of noble Lords have indicated, the two key problems. First, there is the planning system, which the noble Lord, Lord Mair, touched on. There have been successive extensions to permitted development rights, which are a serious block to local people’s abilities to create the sorts of communities in high streets that they want. The noble Lord, Lord Mair, referred to the continuous changes to and increased use of the national use class order, which again restricts the ability to control the content of the high street. As he indicated, class E buildings can now be redeveloped as residential properties in the high street without any resort to the planning situation.

Secondly, we have the issue of council expenditure. As noble Lords have indicated, the Government are allocating the money to develop and draw up the plans, but not to implement them. All the speakers on the Bill have reservations as to whether this will produce any actual implementation. This is in the context of the overall shortage that local authorities are currently looking at—I think the LGA indicates that there will be a £4 billion shortfall for local authorities over the next one or two years. Inevitably, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, indicated, that will lead to cuts in street cleaning and maintenance because, increasingly, local authorities are able to focus their finances only on essential services, which those do not count as.

So, as I have said, we on these Benches are not opposing the Bill. It is a very small step indeed to deal with a very large problem. I might say cynically that perhaps that is why the Government are supporting it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitby (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in today’s important debate. Each contribution has underlined our collective passion for preserving and developing our high streets. If I may, I will make an observation or two.

Before I came here, my life, the journey I had made and my political contribution to society was through local government. To me, it is the essence of a democracy. My intellectual and philosophical journey throughout has been about devolving down to the people you are looking after and are concerned about. The noble Baroness, Lady Green, I believe, mentioned the interference of a top-heavy state. All I would say—

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

It is her party, not her name.

[Lord Whitby (Con)]

I apologise—a rose by any other name.

However, the point made about top-down interference is something I understand, as the leader of a metropolitan borough. I was the leader during Tony Blair’s period, and I liaised with him regularly. I was the leader while Gordon Brown and then David Cameron were Prime Minister. I share with noble Lords the frustration over the evolution of devolution. I know at what pace it goes, and I know how we aspire to accelerate that.

What I believe that this Private Member’s Bill introduces to that debate—I welcome this because all noble Lords have appreciated it—is a move in the right direction, even though it may only be an incremental movement to what we might perceive as utopia. To me, it is a tacit understanding that the Government realise that the movement is bottom-up, through the guidance that we will inform and the consultation that everyone ought to have. The Bill aims to align the munificence of the Government—I think it is almost £15 billion-worth of money through a whole plethora of pots—with the aspirations of local communities, which is what we all believe in.

I thank all noble Lords for expressing tacit support. I am sure that the observations that they have made will inform the guidance that the Government and the Secretary of State will write. We are happy to work with noble Lords and other stakeholders as we develop the guidance. As it is a Private Member’s Bill, an amendment would have killed the Bill, so I thank noble Lords again for their support.

I reiterate my thanks to the honourable Jack Brereton for both selecting me to take the Bill through the House and his leadership in the other place. I also thank my noble friend the Minister and her ministerial colleague Jacob Young in the other place for all their hard work on the Bill, as well as all the DLUHC officers for their work on it. I look forward to taking the Bill through the remaining stages. I beg to move.