High Street Businesses: Government Support

Charlie Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) for the interest, passion, desire and ideas that he brought to the debate—I think we all really appreciate that—and I thank my other hon. Friends for all their good ideas. I will give a particular shout-out to the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for his ideas about enforcement and dealing with illicit businesses on the high street—I think all our constituencies would benefit from those.

It is clear that we have a serious problem. Local pubs, family-owned shops and restaurants matter—they make our communities tick—but up and down the country they are closing at an alarming rate. I want to quantify just what that means: according to figures from the British Beer and Pub Association, 161 pubs—nearly two per day—closed in the first three months of this year across England, Scotland and Wales, taking with them 2,400 jobs, and in 2024 the UK lost 37 shops per day, with almost 13,500 closing. Preliminary figures for 2025 indicate that last year was likely even worse and could surpass 2022, the previous record year for closures. Alarm bells are ringing.

A successful high street is not just about shops; it is about community and connection. As almost everybody in the room has said, it is about bringing community together and giving people opportunity and fun. It is on us as politicians to do our best to make that happen and ensure that it survives. The Lib Dems have been calling consistently for a package of support that recognises the scale of the problem: cutting VAT for hospitality and attractions from 20% to 15%; reforming business rates to reward occupancy; and strengthening the town centre-first principle in planning policy to tackle vacancy rates. That requires applications for main town centre uses to be located in town centres rather than edge-of-centre locations, which should be used only if suitable sites are not available in the town centre. I will give a special shout-out to Witney as an example of a place where decades of support from planning officers and councillors has kept the high street lively, as opposed to everything being dragged out of town. Well done to everybody for doing that over decades.

Let me turn to the problems. I will start with the big stuff: at the top is the failure to get our economy moving. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) just mentioned, being back inside the European single market and customs union would not cost anything—it makes really good sense. Dealing with tax reform makes really good sense. Those measures would cut the cost of doing business by reducing the cost of food, addressing the chronic vacancy rate in hospitality, easing labour shortages and reducing the cost of energy. This is all doable.

At the top of the charge sheet are national insurance contributions. As an ex-entrepreneur, I feel the horror of this daft tax on headcount. Before getting out of bed in the morning—before generating any revenue, let alone profit—businesses are being whacked, and they do not want to hire people. That is really bad news. Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed the change and think it should be reversed in full. We are also calling for a consultation on a new NICs band from £5,000 to £9,100, with a lower rate to better support part-time workers, on whom the hospitality industry relies heavily.

Then there is VAT—that is the 5% cut—and business rates. The numbers on business rates are terrifying. Statistics from the Valuation Office Agency show rateable values rising by an average of 30% in 2026 for pubs and restaurants in England, and by an average of 70% for pubs with accommodation—imagine if that was your business!—outstripping the still substantial average increase of 19.4% across England for all properties. Those increases are completely unsustainable, and I do not think the Government are doing nearly enough to address them.

In my constituency we have fabulous high streets. We have the medieval wonders of Witney and Burford, which rightly attract visitors from around the world. We have much-loved and much-defended free parking, which matters a lot to people, and we are working hard to better our local transport, whether that is buses, walking or biking. As my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage said, we need all those things, not to pit one against the other. Often-overlooked Carterton and Faringdon have tons of wonderful independent shops and need so much more support than we are currently giving them.

I want to focus on a few examples. Lisa and Kirsty have been running Sassi, a clothing shop on Witney high street, for over 15 years. Their business rates bill has gone up by £1,200 this year. Clive, who runs The Flooring Centre in Witney, has seen his business rates increase by 15% this year. This is not being addressed as a problem. Given the dire economic circumstances, such big increases in rates are a disaster.

Let me turn to solutions and return to the need for a 5% VAT cut, a reversal of the increase in employer NICs, and the proper and fair reform of the business rates system that businesses have long been promised. As an interim support measure, we have called for the Government to keep in place the existing 75% relief for retail, hospitality and leisure until the new system is in place.

Our high streets and town centres are places that we all rely on and depend on, hang out in and have fun in, and they are going in the wrong direction. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on what we can do about it.