High Street Retailers

Adrian Ramsay Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. In the usual way, I congratulate the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) on securing today’s important debate, and I apologise to him and to other Members for getting my timing slightly wrong. I will make a point of reading the early part of this debate in Hansard a little later.

We have heard contributions from the hon. Member for East Londonderry and my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley (Imogen Walker), but also important interventions from a series of hon. Members. In the short time available to me, I will probably not be able to do full justice to all those interventions, but let me try to pick up at least one or two of the points made.

Crucially, we need to underline the fact that retail has a key role to play in supporting high streets in every corner of the UK—particularly in Northern Ireland, given the focus of this debate, but more generally across the UK as well. In 2023, the retail sector contributed about £110 billion to our economy: just under 5% of the total UK economy. It remains a very high employment sector, directly supporting 2.9 million jobs across the UK in 2023. In short, retail is the backbone of our high streets and remains a key driver to support economic growth.

I recognise that recently there have been concerning stories in the media about the challenges that retailers are facing, and I know that that is a concern for Members across the House. We know that retailers are facing a series of economic headwinds, as well as dealing with the challenges of changing consumer shopping habits and the rise of online shopping. A thriving high street will continue to need a strong retail offering, helping to drive growth in local economies and supporting local communities. Never has it been so important to help retailers—particularly the small and independent retail businesses to which a number of Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), have referred—to grow.

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

The Minister rightly talks about the importance of supporting small and independent businesses. One thing that those businesses rely on is having access to banking, but banks are closing, which has a particular impact in rural communities. For example, my constituents have lost Barclays in Harleston and this year are due to lose Lloyds in Halesworth and Beccles. Will the Minister outline the progress that the Government are making on their pledge to roll out far more banking hubs so that local communities and businesses keep access to banking in their market towns and areas?

[Gareth Thomas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer opened the 100th banking hub very recently, and I know from figures that Cash Access UK and LINK have published that 200 locations for banking hubs have been identified; that is part of the commitment to roll out 350 banking hubs.

But we want to do more. The Post Office plays a key role in offering banking services, particularly as banks themselves have exited the high street, and we are beginning work with the Post Office to strengthen its banking offer on the high street. I heard very clearly the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) about the directly managed branch in her constituency. I recognise the importance of post offices to all our high streets. She will know that no decision has been made on Hampstead—or, indeed, on any other directly managed branch—but I know she will continue to campaign on this issue.

To support businesses, the Budget honoured the manifesto commitment not to raise corporation tax. It set out the tax road map for this Parliament, in which we will not change corporation tax, which means we have the lowest rate in the G7. All that will support businesses, including retailers, to invest.

As the hon. Member for East Londonderry is aware, retail is a devolved matter. I welcome measures such as the Back in Business rate support scheme, which has been created to incentivise business rate payers to consider occupying empty retail premises. Vacancy is a blight on too many of our high streets and town centres across the country and it can fuel a spiral of decline. That is why Government in all forms need to work together with local communities and businesses to strengthen the offer.

Solar Farms: Agricultural Land

Adrian Ramsay Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Jones]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point. The wider point about farmers being pushed according to EU or local subsidies over the years is of course right, and we need to get the balance right. I will speak to the numbers again: we are looking to go from 17 GW to around 45 GW, which is a trebling of the current land use of 0.1%. We are talking about small numbers, although I appreciate that in some constituencies, such as that of the hon. Member for South Cotswolds, it will feel much bigger because there are more of these products coming along.

Of course we need to get our system right for farmers. I am a Member of Parliament in Croydon, where we do not have many farmers, but I am incredibly grateful to them for their role and the work that they do, and we need to make sure that we support them. Where it is necessary to develop agricultural land—and we need to start with the basics of using other land first where we can—we do not think it will have any significant impact on food security because of the numbers: less than 1% of the UK’s agricultural land will be occupied by solar farms. We do not believe that will have an impact on our food security.

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Jones]

I will finish my point, because it is connected to the point made by the hon. Member for South Cotswolds. The biggest threat to British farmers in the countryside is not solar farms; it is the impact of climate change, and we are already seeing the effects in the floods and droughts that are threatening their livelihoods. We have to be mindful of that when we are trying to tackle climate change and increase the use of solar.

[Adrian Ramsay]

I appreciate the principles that the Minister is setting out, particularly on the impact of climate change on food security. Every model of net zero energy that I have seen includes a greater role for renewable energy on land, but is there not a risk that without a clear land use strategy that shows how we will achieve a resilient food supply while meeting net zero targets, decisions about where solar farms are located will end up getting made on a piecemeal basis, rather than the basis that the Minister is setting out?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman has predicted that I was about to talk about the land use framework. He is right. The Government recognise that England has limited land, and the use demands on it include our vital clean energy infrastructure. The Government will deliver our manifesto commitment by introducing a land use framework so that we can consider how to balance competing demands and transform how we use land. That will support economic growth and deliver on the plan for change that the Prime Minister outlined last month. The framework will work hand in hand with the strategic spatial energy plan, which we have commissioned the National Energy System Operator to devise. The hon. Gentleman is right that we have to understand the whole before we make piecemeal decisions, and our criticism of the previous Government is that those overarching plans were lacking.