Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas

Alison Hume Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about independent businesses. Surely he agrees that they need somewhere to pay in their takings at the end of the day? In Whitby, our Halifax branch is due to close, meaning that people will have to travel 19 miles to Scarborough. There is a plan to open an adult gaming centre in place of the branch. I know that residents want somewhere to deposit and withdraw their money, including local businesses, rather than somewhere to put their coins in slot machines. Would he agree that, for high streets to survive and thrive, it is essential that we have the banks and services that local residents want?

[Jamie Stone]

I absolutely agree with that point. In my area of the highlands, employees sometimes have to travel long distances with a large amount of money to deposit it, and I wonder about their safety. For somebody of evil intent, it would be quite easy to target them as they make the bus journey or whatever.

The Visa survey revealed that four in 10 people agree that small businesses local to them make the area a nicer place to live in, and 40% of local business owners said that customer interaction has a positive impact on their overall job satisfaction. My two daughters loved working in the chemist and the fruit and vegetable shop, because it meant happy chat when they saw their friends.

There is a deep-rooted appreciation in our communities for such businesses, which greatly contribute to the value of the local area. That value is felt by those who work for the local businesses and, as a result of feeling appreciated, they feel a sense of higher job satisfaction. Those two phenomena cannot be separated.

In Scotland, 87% of independent retailers take part in some form of community engagement, so we cannot underestimate how important sustaining businesses is to all aspects of community life—[Interruption.] I am aware of the time, and I shall finish my speech very shortly. For example, the Tain Gala is wonderful thing that is much loved by the community, but 20 years ago the businesses would each chip in. As there are fewer businesses on the high street, it is much harder to run the Tain Gala. I am sure the same is true of Stornoway and other towns across the length and breadth of the UK.

Here in Westminster, we are calling for economic investment in our communities to boost growth. I am very grateful to the previous Government for helping to establish the Inverness and Cromarty Firth green freeport, but if we do not have the local infrastructure to support it —the banks and shops—it will be much harder. Without our high street, without our banks, post offices, hairdressers and chemists, it is harder to support the local population.

--- Later in debate ---

[Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Miss Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for securing this vital debate.

As in many rural areas across the country, high-street services in my constituency of Yeovil have slowly vanished. That includes banks, businesses and pharmacies, as well as culture and leisure facilities. Many of the banks in my constituency have shut their doors. Lloyds bank has closed its branch in Ilminster, and is now closing its branch in Chard. Although we have managed to secure a banking hub for Crewkerne, Ilminster and Chard have been denied banking hubs, despite having the same needs as Crewkerne.

I urge the Government to reassess how appropriate LINK’s criteria for suggesting banking hubs are for rural communities. I still do not believe that travel times or rural geography are being properly considered. There also needs to be as much emphasis in LINK’s assessments on maintaining face-to-face services as there is on access to cash.

[Alison Hume]

On banking hubs, it has not come up in this debate that we are losing banking services that are open five days a week for a banking hub that, in the case of Whitby, is only open one day a week for a few hours. Does the hon. Member agree that that is a big reduction?

[Adam Dance]

I agree; it is a big reduction. Fortunately, in Crewkerne in my constituency, our banking hub will be open five days a week, but I agree that they need to be reassessed.

Beyond banks, many businesses on the high street in my constituency have had to close, such as Kazbar in Yeovil. The broken business rates system has been a significant driver of many of those closures. If we want to support businesses on rural high streets, we need a commercial landowner levy, which would tax only the land value of commercial sites.

Pharmacies also provide vital services to our high street. The 20 pharmacies in my constituency are at the heart of local healthcare but are under severe pressure. Across the country, an estimated 1,200 pharmacies have had to close over the last seven years. I hope that the Government reassure us today that, in their discussions on the 2025-26 funding contract, they will focus on reaching an agreement that exempts our pharmacies from the rise in employer national insurance contributions.

Finally, we must not forget the vital cultural services that our high streets can provide. I had the honour of opening Yeovil’s new amphitheatre at the Triangle, which creates a new public open space and focal point for events. We need more projects like that, but between 2010 and 2024 annual spending on culture and leisure services saw a real-terms fall of £2.3 billion. It is vital that local authorities receive more funding from the Government to support the arts and culture so that we can provide excellent culture projects to regenerate our high street.

In conclusion, the tide of closures on our high streets must be reversed. Our constituents deserve high streets that they can be proud of, and which provide services we need, not boarded-up shops.

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

There are still many of you wishing to speak, so I will restrict you each to two minutes because we want to hear a response from the Minister and the spokespeople. I call Alison Hume.

[Alison Hume]

I would like to give my time to somebody else. I have intervened on the subjects I wish to speak about.