High Street Shops: Illicit Activity

Jodie Gosling Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing this very important debate. This weekend, Nuneaton celebrated the 800th anniversary of its royal market charter, first awarded by King Henry III. It was an absolutely fantastic day, with live local music and our teenage, independent and normal Saturday markets all coming together to celebrate our rich history and culture and the talent of my town.

I was immensely proud to be part of that, and I was delighted to see such an increase in footfall for our traders. But my town, like so many others, has been battered by years of austerity and under-investment. Transformation plans were delayed again and again, while £1.25 million was cut from our trading standards between 2011 and 2015, creating a culture of looking the other way while dodgy shop after dodgy shop moved in. In the past two years, our Labour council has begun to turn things around. Our long-promised transformation plans are finally coming to fruition with the opening of Saints, the demolition approvals for and landscaping of long-empty sites, and now new investment in Grayson Place, welcoming the UK’s first championship padel courts and the brilliant North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire college to our town.

Our council and its officers have worked tirelessly to diversify our town, bringing in homes, services, hospitality and leisure. An empty Debenhams has become luxury apartments, and an old nightclub has become Saints—thriving community assets. Footfall is rising again, up more than 24,000 in the final quarter, with 2 million visits to my town centre this year. Businesses are returning and confidence is growing. We are on track to restore our once-vibrant town centre.

However, that progress is at risk if we cannot turn the tide on crime and dodgy shops, which threaten the very survival of historical towns such as mine. Dodgy shops undercut honest tax-paying traders by selling counterfeit and illegal goods. Worse still, they undermine public confidence in our country’s ability to enforce the law. People see illegal vape shops, drugs and counterfeit products being openly sold, and suspected money laundering and organised crime, and ask how that is allowed to happen. For far too long, that question has gone unanswered.

I welcome the Government’s new funding for trading standards, and the National Crime Agency’s new powers to strengthen enforcement between the Home Office, HMRC, trading standards and the police, but that funding and those powers must reach into towns such as mine. We cannot simply force problems out of larger cities and into smaller towns without providing the resources to tackle them. We need to prevent them from arising in the first place.

While out door-knocking recently, I was told by residents about cars driving at all hours of the day, including 4 am visits, with whole streets being disturbed. I raised that with our local teams, and raids took place this week. Illegal goods were seized, and we now await closure orders. However, that is all too often not the outcome. As we have heard, the endless whack-a-mole situation prevents people from closing such places down permanently. If our towns are to make progress and we are to protect what we have, we must be able to close them down permanently and never allow them to open again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (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. I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on their work to combat dodgy shops.

As is evident from the number of Members here—particularly Labour Members—this issue concerns many of our constituencies. Sadly, my Thurrock constituency is not immune to dodgy shops and illegality and criminality on the high street. Like others, we have seen a massive proliferation of vape shops and barber shops, as well as—if not mini-marts—very odd home goods shops springing up out of nowhere, with two or three competitors directly opposite, and selling goods that probably explode the minute they are turned on and are no good for anyone. Those phoenix shops close down or change hands after five to six months, evading tax, evading business rates and providing no good and no use to the town at all.

Indeed, one such shop, on Grays High Street in my local town, now does not even bother to remove the merchandise or move it around; it just sticks a Sharpie-written sign up on the door every six months saying that it is under new management, which is absolutely appalling. We know where the issues lie: spending on trading standards has been reduced by around 50% over the last decade.

[Jodie Gosling]

Considering the strength of feeling and the level of criminality that we have heard about, does my hon. Friend not find it shocking that, on top of long-term cuts of £100,000 in its medium-term forecasts, Warwickshire county council has just frozen £55,000 that was allocated to tackling rogue traders?

[Jen Craft]

That is indeed shocking and very short-sighted.

The real issue in my area is that our council is under intervention, so its ability to plan and take enforcement action, and to put planning conditions on town centres to better reflect what people are after—rather than the best way for businesses to turn a profit—is somewhat hampered.