High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th March 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Would any other colleagues like to speak before I call the Minister?

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Charles. I had not indicated that I wished to speak, but I want to add a couple of things.

I very much welcome the Bill and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South for bringing it forward. Dudley high street and those in a couple of peripheral areas in my constituency, Sedgley and Gornal, suffer from what most high streets have suffered from since the advent of the tsunami that the digital age brought with it. I suspect that each and every one of us in this room is guilty of contributing, in our own small way, to their gradual demise, which was unfortunately super-accelerated by covid, when everybody was asked to operate from home and therefore through their laptops, and everything was delivered to our doorsteps.

I do think that local councils need help—they have needed it for some time—but I also think that local government should be doing more anyway. In Dudley I have argued for a masterplan for our town centre, which is effectively what the Bill asks for. If it becomes the adopted policy of local councils, they can decide how many pound shops, charity shops and fish and chip shops they want on their high street. As things stand, if a particular building has a particular planning designation, there could be 20 of each—I might mention Turkish barber shops that do not have many Turkish people in them.

This is a good Bill and I warmly support it, for the reasons I have given. It strikes the right balance between what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North indicated—let us take back some pride in our high streets—and some of the extra motivation that I think local government needs.

[The Chair]

Are all colleagues happy? Right. I call the Minister.