Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about the vital importance of sports clubs, and I ask the Minister to look favourably on his proposal.

Although the focus of the non-domestic rating Bill is relatively narrow—to reset the next revaluation of business rates to take account of the pandemic, which of course I welcome—I urge the Minister to get the Secretary of State, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to think big about the future of town centres. Covid has accelerated their decline; it is now a really big crisis, on top of the online shopping phenomenon, which has also been accelerating.

The Government need to act because town centres can become the hub of local community and business life. They have been in the past, and, to some extent, they still are—but this role is rapidly shrivelling due to commercial and online pressures and changing lifestyles, which have been accelerated by the pandemic. I believe that business rates and rents have a crucial role to play here. Of course, there is a variety of complex exemptions, suspensions and reliefs, but it is now necessary to have a much more radical and comprehensive solution to this problem, or town centres will die just as we consider future policy to save them.

My own town centre in Neath is a cosy, pedestrianised area, which is very attractive to shop in, although the shops have been disappearing on all levels. There is an old market building with small stalls dating back to 1837 and renovated in 1904, and a great variety of small artisan shops—you can get your watch fixed there. Most people go into a jeweller’s and are invited to exchange their watch when the battery runs out rather than replace it because it is almost cheaper to buy a new one. This issue of the throwaway society, which is ecologically damaging, of course, can be dealt with if there are people who repair them, as they do in the Neath town centre market. A number of other small businesses and artisans offer that facility.

To keep that kind of vibrancy in town centres, they have to be supported, otherwise it is not viable. The town centre and markets are being undermined by high costs, high rents and business rates. This is not the local council’s fault: it does not have the funding or the legal basis to subsidise. We lost our Crown post office, which was put into the back of the local WHSmith, but how long will WHSmith survive across town centres such as Neath’s? We have bank branches closing the whole time; if local post offices assumed a post/bank role, banks could put their facilities in the back.

The Government need a completely new agenda on business rates as they apply to town centres. They should be completely scrapped for micro-businesses in town centres. Of course, there will be issues of defining what a town centre is: would this apply to large village centres, for example? At a central level, the Government have to fund local government because it cannot do this on its own. If rents are not scrapped for town centres, that has to be part of this as well. Of course, local government has had a 30% cut in the last 10 years, so it is no good the Government and Ministers passing the buck to local authorities; the Treasury must step in and take responsibility.

To reduce our carbon footprint and end the throwaway culture, where we never get computer printers repaired or watch batteries replaced because it is cheaper to just throw them away and buy a new one, we have to encourage a regeneration of these local skills and facilities, effectively through a subsidy. To do so, we have to end our society’s obsession with low tax. If we want a decent quality of life in town centres, which everyone says they do, we have to be prepared to pay for it. It is not going to happen on its own—market forces and commercial pressures on their own will not resolve this problem. Treasury funding, provided through local councils, is necessary in order to regenerate and revive our town centres, and I hope that the Minister will seriously consider this option in the future review, which has to be comprehensive.