David Mowat
Main Page: David Mowat (Conservative - Warrington South)Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Simon Danczuk
It is neither. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) made the point that Amazon is not paying full corporation tax, and there is a discrepancy in business rates, so I suggest that we need to overhaul the whole business rates system. It is simply not fit for purpose.
I am aware that many other voices are not locked into the myopic consensus that characterises Government thinking on the high street. One of them is that of Bill Grimsey, a turnaround specialist, who was formerly the chief executive of Wickes, Iceland and other companies. I met Bill recently, and he explained that town centres cannot be saved as pure retail destinations. Technology is already influencing how we shop, and in the future everything will change. What is required, he argued, is a holistic approach to creating vibrant high streets that addresses housing, education, health, entertainment and shopping.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He has not yet addressed something that probably costs retailers more than business rates: credit card interchange fees. If they were reduced to what Europe has said the cross-border level should be, £1 million would be put into every MP’s high street. That is an enormous amount of money. Would the hon. Gentleman therefore give the Government credit for acting on credit card interchange fees through the recent consultation, and does he hope that we can make progress? That would make a substantial difference, by putting demand into local economies.
Simon Danczuk
I welcome that intervention. I am not very familiar with the issue, and it has not been raised with me in relation to the high street, but the hon. Gentleman makes an interesting and important point, about which I am keen to learn more.
We need a fully focused, committed approach by Government, not another dose of dilettante PR. Currently, it is hard to know who is in charge of high street policy. Let us just spend a moment trying to make sense of where the change we need is coming from.
The Business Secretary turned up at the recent Retail Week Live conference and talked about accepting Mary Portas’s 38 recommendations, when there were only 28. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is constantly in the newspapers, using emotive language to talk about car parking charges while he continues to cut council budgets to the bone. A Department for Communities and Local Government Minister claims that the unfair business rates revaluation delay is right, despite not one voice in retail supporting the move. The Minister with responsibility for Portas pilots and high streets carries out the role on a part-time basis while he tends to his main duties as housing Minister, and today we have a planning Minister addressing this high street debate.
I say to the Minister that someone needs to get a grip. We need a full-time high streets Minister and clear, strong leadership from the Government. Only then might the Prime Minister’s woolly rhetoric about ensuring that high streets are at the heart of every community start to mean something.