Retail Sector

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that 21,000 jobs were lost in the retail sector in the first three months of 2018 due to store closures and company administrations, with more announced since; further notes that the retail sector is one of the largest employers in the UK and contributed £94.6 billion to the UK economy in 2016; regrets that the Government’s industrial strategy contains only three references to the retail sector; further regrets that the Government has presided over the biggest squeeze in wage growth in a generation, is failing to provide certainty around future trading arrangements after Brexit and has failed to ensure a fair business rates system; and calls on the Government to urgently publish a strategy for the retail sector.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I will.

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the shadow Minister. The point on business rates is one that small businesses in my constituency regularly raise with me as something that not only curtails their opportunity to grow, but impedes their security for the immediate future. Does she think that the Government should do something about this immediately?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I completely agree. I will come on to business rates and the action that I would suggest that the Government take shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

I agree. We want to make sure that our retail sector is dynamic and provides value and choice for consumers, as well as good career opportunities for members of staff.

[Melanie Onn]

The Secretary of State says that retailers are not failing, but the empty shops in Grimsby town centre tell my constituents something very different. Will he comment on that?

[Greg Clark]

Across the country, from time to time, businesses will close. I am familiar with Grimsby, as the hon. Lady knows, and one of the actions we are taking, which I know she will support, is to have a town deal with Grimsby to make sure that we maximise the advantages locally. Freeman Street in Grimsby shows this phenomenon has been happening not just over the past 12 or 24 months; there has been a long-term change. Local dedication, based on knowledge of the local environment, is required to have the best prospects for a revival.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I confess I had not intended to speak in this debate, but I realised that week in, week out my constituents consistently talk about the state of Grimsby town centre. It is an issue on the doorstep and in my surgery. They all want something done about it. People in Grimsby are incredibly passionate about their town, are filled with pride for it, but they are losing hope that things are on the up. I agree with some of the comments from the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr): the impression they get reflects on how they feel not only about their town but about themselves, and seeing things in a state of decline and disrepair has a negative impact on the sense of community.

The town centre is where most people from out of town get dropped off on the bus or the train—obviously, there are car-parking facilities as well—and serves the needs of a much wider population than that of the immediate Grimsby town. Lots of people from lots of neighbouring villages visit for a variety of reasons, whether to meet their health needs, to shop, to use the libraries, or whatever. The first thing they see, however, when they get off their bus or train is boarded-up shops. I intervened on the Secretary of State when he said that retailers were not failing. If closed shops are a sign of success, God only knows what failure looks like! It cannot be right that there are so many vacant properties across town and city centres that seem to have no planned future use.

People understand that their consumer habits have changed—as they wait for their deliveries from online retailers, or in a queue to collect them because they were not at home—and that this has had an impact on the high street. Grimsby has a big shopping centre, Freshney Place, and its manager, Amanda Austin, has done a huge amount to attract new retailers, but it feels like she is fighting a losing battle.

We have lost, not just from Freshney Place but more broadly across the town: Mothercare; Maplin; BHS—of course; GAME; Trade Nation; Starbucks—it came back again, but it left for a while; Radio Humberside—it had a property from which it ran the local radio service, meaning the town felt connected to the BBC and the local news service, and it felt like there was some investment from the outside; and the Co-op bank—interesting that it is opening up new supermarkets, but its banking facility has gone; while the RBS will be closing soon. I wrote to RBS about a continuing service, and it was very regretful, but it does not seem to take seriously the impact it will have more broadly not only on its business but on the whole town and area. We have also lost Homebase, Muffin Break and Cycle Mode—a lovely independent high-end cycle retailer. These shops all seem to have been replaced by vape shops, money lenders, charity shops and hairdressers—Members probably could not tell looking at my roots. [Interruption.] I have not quite managed to find the time yet.

However, we are not doing nothing. There are some brave independents that have set out to establish new businesses, but that tends to happen in the café market. As with supermarkets, we are surely at saturation point. There will come a time when we do not need any more cafés—when we do not need to eat any more cakes or drink any more tea, lovely as that is and excellent as those providers are. The future of our town centres cannot be entirely based on that. I mentioned saturation point. We have two Tesco Extras, a Sainsbury’s, two Lidls, two Aldis, and a Morrisons—whose move to a continental shift pattern is having a huge impact on individual members of staff—but those are not the high street, and relying on them for the future of our town economies seems utterly ludicrous to me.

In Grimsby, 4,500 people are employed in retail: about 11% of the working sector. Let me use my final seconds to say to the Minister—unsurprisingly—that we are trying to pioneer a town deal that will bring together all the elements that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Stirling. We are talking about repurposing the whole town centre: introducing entertainment to create a new night-time economy, adapting buildings for housing, and creating a heritage action zone that will feed into the centre. We are not sitting idly by and hoping that things will get better. We are trying to future- proof our town centre, but we are asking for help from the Government, and we are not being shy about it. We need some money—and can we have it soon, please?