High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous (Southgate and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) on securing this important debate and on his excellent speech.

Our high streets are more than just places to shop. They are at the heart of our communities; they are places where people meet, local businesses grow and neighbourhoods come to life. That is why illicit activity on our high streets not only undermines the honest businesses that work hard to serve the community but makes people feel unsafe in their communities. They see illicit activity go unchecked and feel powerless.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Crowds and antisocial behaviour outside shops are often a red flag for the activity inside them. That is an issue not just for the Home Office and HMRC, but for the police. To make our towns safe, the individuals engaging in that type of activity outside shops also need to be dealt with. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. People sometimes feel intimidated by those who congregate around shops, and that makes them feel unsafe.

Southgate and Wood Green constituents have told me that, aside from the sale of counterfeit vapes and tobacco, they have witnessed drug dealing openly taking place outside cafés and other premises. They have witnessed phoenix shops—which open for a few weeks, close and then reopen under a different name—dodging tax and business rates and contributing nothing to the local area. It is clear that organised crime is behind that, as many hon. Members have said.

Serious and organised crime is estimated to cost the UK Government at least £47 billion annually. Investing in the protection of our high streets should be at the top of our priorities. The recent Home Office and Treasury announcements are a good start, but we need a co-ordinated approach, with one Department taking the lead in solving this problem, which cuts across Departments. If we are to crack the problem, co-ordination and information-sharing at local government and national Government levels will be key.

That is why I welcome the Government’s new national high street organised crime unit, which has been established to co-ordinate across Government, policing and enforcement agencies. That is, alongside the £30 million for combating high street criminality, a welcome step forward. However, to act as fast as possible, we must also give authorities more power to tackle crime head-on.

As is the case in my constituency, trading standards teams are already stretched. We desperately need more investment in trading standards, including more trading standards officers. Specialist financial investigators are also urgently needed to address money laundering, and I am pleased that the Treasury has promised to invest in them. We must do more at the pace that this challenge demands.

However, although the Government’s efforts to tackle illicit activity are welcome, enforcement alone cannot close an already widening gap. Criminal networks are often hidden behind front operators with no obvious criminal record, making it difficult for local authorities to identify risks before damage is done. Colleagues have already referred to the Bibob Act in the Netherlands, which focuses on prevention and tackling the issue before it can come to life on high streets. I would very much welcome powers like those in that Act.

As we work to tackle the criminality on some of our high streets, we must ask how we can prevent it from taking root in the first place. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government are considering giving greater powers to local authorities and trading standards officers to tackle illicit activity on our streets? What steps she is taking to ensure that there is greater co-ordination in Government and at local level?

I welcome all the changes that the Government are making to protect our high streets from illicit activity, including the extension of closure order powers. However, more needs to be done to tackle this challenging issue. We must restore public confidence and more vibrant and thriving high streets. To do so, we need to use all the weapons at our disposal to cut out once and for all the cancer of illicit and criminal activity.