High Street Businesses

Debate between Douglas Alexander and Wendy Morton

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. Before I respond to the debate on behalf of the Government, I should say that I am a proud member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, a union that works tirelessly on behalf of its 360,000 members to negotiate better pay and conditions for shop workers throughout the country.

I thank all the many Members who participated in this worthwhile and timely debate, and pay tribute to each and every one who spoke compellingly about the high streets in their constituencies. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) for securing the debate and thank him for speaking so eloquently—I particularly enjoyed his reference to the “skanky toilets”—in support of our high streets. He has shown considerable interest in this policy area for many years, not least as chair of the former all-party parliamentary group for the future of retail. It is fair to say that he has been a persistent champion of high streets, not just in his constituency, but across the country, so his insights and views are always welcome.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) for speaking so powerfully about the perpetual review roundabout that we see in Scotland in relation to planning and, alas, the Scottish Government’s approach to the high streets. I acknowledge the real, if temporary, cross-party consensus identified by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont)—albeit that I am not sure there is quite as wide a culinary Caledonian consensus on the health and dietary benefits of the deep-fried Mars bar. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and confirm that we share his ambition to improve safety on our high streets—an issue to which I shall return.

I also pay generous tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald). There is no stronger champion than he for Stockton and for the interests of its residents. I was intrigued to hear about the three businesses that are planning to open on Stockton high street. That is indeed welcome news, and I commend and congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing it to the attention of the House. He also raised the critical issue of policing and public safety—again, I shall return to that.

The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) spoke about the fiscal measures announced in the Budget, to which I will also return, although I note that she offered no alternatives in the course of her speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) added a perhaps necessary health warning about deep-fried Mars bars and spoke passionately about the Calder Valley businessmen and women who started with a dream and built a proud business community. There could be no more eloquent description of the experience of many entrepreneurs on high streets the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

Reference to the whole of the United Kingdom brings me to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who described his mother’s careful management of the family budget—an all-too-common concern during the cost of living crisis of recent years, after 14 years of Conservative economic mismanagement. Be assured, the Government want to ensure that businesses in every part of the United Kingdom—in Northern Ireland, in Scotland, in Wales and in England—benefit from measures that deliver economic stability and the Government’s mission of growth.

My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank), as both a proud Bairn and a self-described Falkirk boy, described where and how he spends his Saturday afternoons. I am not sure that every Member of the House would be wise to do that; none the less, it was helpful and educative for the rest of us to understand his commitment to the Falkirk community. He paid generous tribute to the hospitality workers in Falkirk and in communities and high streets the length and breadth of the country and highlighted the dangers they face. I concur that a new direction for Scotland is needed, not only in relation to our high streets, planning and retail crime, but much, much more fundamentally.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) spoke powerfully, and I noted his remarks carefully. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) recognised a truth sadly missing from some of the other speeches when he acknowledged, candidly and rightly, that high streets have faced challenges for decades. These are constantly changing retail offerings that we need to recognise are subject to pressures far beyond the reach of individual Governments, but reflect changing patterns of life, of culture and of leisure.

The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) spoke of high streets as the beating heart of our communities—on that at least we agree—before making a speech that omitted the fact that Liz Truss crashed the economy and left not only an impaired fiscal balance sheet, but a flatlining economy and devastated public services. Again, I waited with bated breath for the Conservatives’ official spokesman to offer their fiscal alternative, in the teeth of the criticism directed toward the Government—but alas, I waited in vain.

[Wendy Morton]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Alexander]

Time is against me. I want to address as many of the points raised today as I can, but before I do, I want to say a bit about the Government’s wider commitment to supporting our high streets.

Hon. Members in all parts of the House agree that high streets play a vital role in providing a place for communities to come together, to work, to socialise, to shop and to access essential services. The sectors that underpin the high streets play a huge role in our broader economy. The retail sector directly supports some 2.9 million jobs across the UK, and in 2023 generated £110 billion gross value added. The UK hospitality sector employs about 2.2 million people; it is estimated to have contributed about £52 billion GVA in 2023, and it remains a key driver of the UK’s tourism industry.

Let us be clear: high street businesses can prosper and grow only on firm foundations of economic stability—and that, alas, is certainly not what we inherited last July. Instead, we faced a £22 billion black hole created by the previous Government, featuring hundreds of unfunded pressures on public finances and countless uncosted measures that failed to withstand even the slightest scrutiny. The hon. Member for Stockton West spoke eloquently about his experience working for Woolies, but I respectfully point out that Woolies ceased to trade under a Conservative Government—a fact he omitted from his speech.

At the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made some, frankly, very difficult choices, but decisions were necessary to fix the foundations of a broken economy—