High Street Businesses: Government Support
Olly Glover Excerpts(6 days, 20 hours ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for high street businesses.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. For decades, centuries and even millennia, towns and their high streets have been the focus of commercial and community activity—not just for the towns themselves, but for surrounding villages and rural communities. Whether it is for market day, celebrating great events such as VE Day, essential services such as banking and laundrettes, or spending time eating and drinking with friends and family, high streets and urban centres have long offered so much. However, across the country, our high streets and their businesses are struggling as never before. Too many, sadly, are falling into disrepair, with empty shops, cracked pavements, antisocial behaviour and crime, and streets strewn with waste.
Such issues are seen across the country. The 2025 Simply Business “SME Insights Report” on small and medium-sized enterprises found that more than half, or 63%, of small businesses believed that the high street as we know it will be obsolete in the next 10 years. This debate is an important opportunity to set out why central Government support is essential for high street businesses to thrive.
My constituency has three towns. I will say a little about the challenges and opportunities that they each face, before covering three key themes on the support that they and other high streets and businesses need. Didcot is the largest town in my constituency. It has seen huge housing growth in recent years, a trend that continues with the ongoing development of Valley Park. The town centre does not have a single focus, such as a traditional market square. Instead, it has two key areas: an older high street called the Broadway and a new retail park called the Orchard Centre.
Both the Broadway and the Orchard Centre face the challenges of antisocial behaviour and shoplifting; far more co-ordination between police, local authorities and businesses is needed. Didcot Broadway contains a range of shops, cafés, takeaways and restaurants. I thank Little India for the fantastic paneer jalfrezi that I got for a takeaway on Monday evening. Broadway also has the wonderful Mulberry pub at its western end. The Broadway forms the centre of the town, but businesses face many challenges, including the presence of the popular Orchard Centre retail park close by.
Amer Siddique, owner of Snack@Teas, formed a group of local business owners and is a passionate advocate for investment in the Broadway and town centre. I shall explore a number of those business owners’ concerns in my speech. Didcot’s last bank closed this year, despite the town’s population having grown to more than 32,000. It remains to be seen how well a proposed banking hub will fill that void. Parking in the town is a big concern as well, as a result of the rising population, although I am pleased that the Orchard Centre listened to vociferous local concerns and changed its mind on introducing car-parking charges.
In the east of my constituency, Wallingford is the smallest of the three towns, but more than makes up for that with its history, which goes back to Anglo-Saxon times. Its town centre high streets have a range of small businesses, full of character, such as the independent Wallingford Bookshop and Le Clos, a wine bar also offering amazing food, including tarte flambée with a range of toppings—baked flatbreads originating in the Alsace region of France. A key challenge for an ancient town is how to accommodate car traffic and parking to maintain visitor levels, given the large towns and cities fairly nearby. There is also frustration in Wallingford that NHS criteria seemingly prevent more than one pharmacy being able to serve the town.
Finally, Wantage is the second largest town in my constituency and the birthplace of King Alfred. In Wantage, the great Market Place is lined with independent shops, cafés and restaurants, with a retail park in the town centre, too. Wantage’s Argos store has been shut for two years, and New Look has now closed its doors as well, so vacant premises are a concern and many existing businesses highlight the crippling impact of significantly increased business rates—including the Vaults bar and pizza restaurant, the Kings Arms pub and the Bear Hotel, the last of which reports a doubling of its business rate charges. Consultation and debate are ongoing about how to further improve Wantage Market Place, which is dominated by car parking and bus stops. Special events that see Market Place closed to traffic, including the annual Dickensian evening, are popular and see the place filled with visitors.
The three towns, and their high street businesses, have three themes at the heart of their challenges and concerns, the first of which is the growing burden of business taxation and costs. Local businesses are feeling hammered by rising costs and barriers to their growth and hiring people; they feel there is an unfair playing field, given that online businesses are not taxed in the same ways and to the same degree. They feel that business rates are a flawed tax that is not directly related to either income or profit. Businesses in my constituency feel that recent Government changes to business rates have done little to ease the difficult situations they face, and certainly fall well short of the radicalism that was at least implied in Labour’s 2024 manifesto.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
I salute the speech that my hon. Friend is giving; I am seeing the same situation play out in my constituency. Brecon has one of the most beautiful high streets in Wales, with its gorgeous Georgian buildings, but local businesses are telling me exactly the same thing. They are taking an absolute hammering from this Government’s decision to push through business rate revaluations. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a real concern? Does he believe that the VAT cut to hospitality that the Liberal Democrats are calling for would at least help to restore some activity, life and profit to our hospitality businesses?
Olly Glover
I agree that such a VAT cut would help, because it is not just business rates that small businesses on high streets are facing. On top of business rate increases and the burden of value-added tax, they are also paying for increased labour and payroll costs, including the higher national living wage and increased employer national insurance contributions. Some of those measures are understandable, and they will of course be welcomed by some, but the story I hear from my high street businesses is that the cumulative impact of all these things in a small space of time is creating challenges. Many businesses are also still servicing debts from the covid-19 pandemic, such as repaying bounce back loans, which further restricts their finances to ride out the current challenges or invest in the future.
Electricity, wage costs, business rates and general taxation are adding up to a perfect storm when combined with ongoing cost of living pressures for consumers, which affect demand. Constrained finances in high street businesses have a knock-on effect on their capacity, meaning that owners are particularly reluctant to hire entry-level or younger workers. That is exacerbated by the recent compression of the wage floor with changes to national insurance contributions and the national living wage.
While recognising the benefits of such changes for workers, businesses raised concerns in Alan Milburn’s interim report, “Young people and work”, saying that these pressures make them consider reducing staffing altogether, or hiring fewer, more experienced workers. This affects the flexibility of the businesses to staff correctly against fluctuating footfall, and reduces opportunities for entry-level workers. Labour is effectively one of the few remaining adjustable cost bases within owners’ control, and it is suffering accordingly.
High street retailers continue to adjust to the changing nature of consumer behaviour, such as online competition and destination shopping. There is a lack of consistent support available to high street businesses at a local level to support retailers through these challenges, and I will come on to say a little bit more about that.
The second key theme is transport and access, which is a key challenge as a result of population growth and central Government housing targets. A growing amount of car traffic, competing for a constrained amount of car parking in town centres, creates real challenges, particularly in older towns such as Wallingford. That is why the reality is that more must be done to help those who can, and would like to, walk and cycle by providing them with safer and better options for doing so. For example, cycle parking can reassure them that their bicycle will be safe.
At this point, I should say that when we get into a debate about transport, it is often presented as an either/or between cars and public transport, walking and cycling. However, those things are not mutually exclusive. The Netherlands does not just have a globally leading cycling infrastructure and culture; it has the most comprehensive motorway in Europe, as well as a fully electrified mainline railway network. Public transport, walking and cycling are complementary to cars—we need both. Even small increases in the use rates of public transport, walking and cycling can help to ease congestion and free up parking spaces for those who need them.
Investment in roads, pavements and general town centre infrastructure is also a concern. Poorly maintained pavements can be a barrier for older residents and those with mobility issues, increasing the risk of falls and discouraging visits to the town centre. Improving accessibility would help to attract more visitors and support local businesses.
The third theme is local government funding pressures. Of course, many small businesses in my constituency, entirely understandably, look to local councils to help them with their high street and business challenges. I want to explain why local councils are too affected by central Government policy and face reduced budgets amidst growing costs.
With their origins in European Union funding streams, South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils have, until now, benefited from allocations from two funds: the UK shared prosperity fund and the rural England prosperity fund. Between them, those funding streams have supported more than 130 local projects across the councils so far. Projects were hugely varied, but they included grants to support businesses and community groups with a transition to more efficient and affordable energy use—pubs and cafés, for example. They also included providing capital investment into equipment that supports productivity gains, funding a huge range of business and skills support programmes, often targeting those most at need; developing a visitor economy support programme to support our market towns; and making several small-scale improvements to the public realm across the two districts.
Unfortunately, this Labour Government have decided to scrap those funds, and their replacements, Pride in Place and the local growth fund, are principally targeted at city regions and areas of high deprivation. The impact of the abolition of the two funds is not trivial. In 2025-26, the allocations from the two funds across the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire districts were £1 million; in 2024-25, the total was £2.4 million. At the same time, changes to local government funding formulae mean that Oxfordshire county council will lose £24 million in funding over the next three years.
Those changes affect all three councils’ abilities to invest in high streets and support local businesses. They also make it harder for them to explore new ideas, such the ones requested by the town councils of the three towns I mentioned: grants to town and parish councils to invest in civic pride, such as floral planting, hanging baskets, more street cleaning and more ways to promote local shopping; or funding to employ town centre managers to link the town council with retail centres and independent traders.
I want to set out my key asks of central Government. Once again, the Government need to go much further in reforming business rates—a form of taxation that bears little resemblance to a business’s earnings. Does the Minister recognise that evidence submitted to Alan Milburn’s interim report into young people not in education, employment or training identified labour costs as a key concern? The Government, to their credit, have announced serious intentions in relation to energy prices, but what should be done in the meantime, particularly with no sign—very sadly—of war in the middle east abating?
Once again, will the Minister heed Liberal Democrat calls for a 5% cut to VAT for hospitality? Does he agree that taxation arrangements need modernisation, given the rising threat to physical businesses posed by online retail? Given rising demand and the same amount of space for car parking, do the Government agree that greater investment in public transport and walking and cycling infrastructure is needed to make it easier for people who need to drive to have the road space and car parking to do so?
What fresh, new ideas do the Government have to help our high streets? I have a few examples to consider. National “buy local” schemes would incentivise and reward people for spending their money locally. A “high streets back home” scheme would give people a clear route to invest in their own community, whether by restoring heritage building, supporting local enterprise or helping to secure community assets. The Government could give councils the power to designate independent shop zones, protecting and championing small locally owned businesses against the tide of chains and empty units.
Does the Minister accept that, for councils not benefiting from Pride in Place funding, including in Oxfordshire, the end of the UK shared prosperity and rural England prosperity funds constitute a cut to local government funding? That undermines their ability to invest in staff and initiatives to help small businesses improve town centres, and to award grants to businesses and community organisations to help them reduce their energy bills or upgrade their equipment. Our high streets and local businesses are critical to the successes of our towns and surrounding communities, and I call on the Government to give them the support that they deserve.
Olly Glover
I thank all hon. Members who have attended the debate. I hope I will not get in too much trouble for suggesting that this is a bit of a graveyard slot, so in that context I welcome that hon. Members from four parties and from many geographical parts of the UK have given their time to attend. I will briefly bring out some of the wide range of important themes that other hon. Members raised during our discussion.
On the important issue of illicit businesses on the high street, the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) cited good practice in the Netherlands—as did I, for different reasons—on tackling illicit and suspicious businesses. It really is a remarkable country in terms of how much good practice there is to be found there. The issue of an EU youth mobility scheme remains important for helping with labour shortages and boosting opportunities. The hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) definitely deserves a mention, given his experience of wrestling shoplifters personally. It is important that we have people in this House who can bring such real-world experience to bear here. My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), mentioned the critical issue of pub closures, the huge issues that pubs face and the very valuable role that they play in the rural economy.
I thank the Minister for his remarks. From what he said, I could hear that he very much recognises the importance of high street businesses. I shall read with interest the small business and high streets strategies, although I hope I am not being too cynical in noting that history is paved with the paper of Government strategies that have not always translated into action. He mentioned the Post Office community model; he will be receiving a parliamentary petition about East Hagbourne post office in his ministerial inbox. My concern is that, while the community model may be suitable in some locations, the Post Office as an organisation may be a bit too keen to foist it on areas for which it is less suitable.
The Minister’s comments did not address the impact of the scrapping of the UK shared prosperity fund and the rural England prosperity fund, perhaps as it is an issue more for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Perhaps he will be so good as to take that point to his colleagues.
I thank everybody for attending and giving their time. Let us hope that all of us across this House can work together to ensure that we continue to have thriving high streets, with thriving businesses on them.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government support for high street businesses.
Oral Answers to Questions
Olly Glover Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Small businesses in Didcot’s Broadway are struggling with energy and staff costs, business rates and a rising tax burden, and the older town centre would benefit from investment and rejuvenation. For areas, such as Didcot, that did not receive Pride in Place funding, what suggestions does the Secretary of State have for funding or other forms of support?
Peter Kyle
What businesses in Didcot and right across the country need is a fast-growing economy, and that is what we are delivering.
Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Olly Glover Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker—I had forgotten how to do it.
When assessing the effectiveness and suitability of the King’s Speech, we need to consider what we need for a great and renewed United Kingdom. First, we need a fairer society with greater opportunities; secondly, we need an economy that works for people; and thirdly, we need a strong and globally relevant United Kingdom.
Starting with a fairer society, the King’s Speech contains some good intentions in relation to housing, with the social housing renewal Bill and the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill. However, the former falls a long way short of real action on social housing, with the Government continuing to refuse to refocus their targets on social housing specifically, and with no clear legislative plan to properly regulate property management companies and their charges.
The proposed Bills on health and education also both fall short. The Government continue to prevaricate on the desperate need to act on the findings of numerous reviews of adult social care, which is the best way to support our struggling NHS. The focus on special educational needs provision is welcome, but the proposals in the King’s Speech are unlikely to succeed without investment in state special schools, which is necessary to reduce significant local authority expenditure on private special schools and transport to distant special schools.
On transport more widely, measures to improve taxi and private hire safety and regulation, railway investment in the north of England, and private finance for roads have merit. However, it is important that we do not blindly follow the Treasury’s obsession with avoiding capital spending. There are many examples of private finance initiatives that ended up as very poor value for money on a whole-life-cost basis, which is what we should think about rather than “sign and forget” private finance deals.
While votes at 16 are welcome, real ambition is missing when it comes to fixing our broken politics. The Government’s proposals do not address the real need to modernise the House of Lords, deal with grubby money in our politics, or introduce a fair voting system that delivers election outcomes that bear some resemblance to how people vote.
Perhaps the greatest omission for my constituents is yet another failure to deal with the dysfunction of our planning system—centrally imposed housing targets without the same targets or focus on the infrastructure and public services needed to support them, whether that is healthcare, transport, or large-scale leisure. Councils are often blamed for not providing those services, but much of the fault really lies with central Government.
On an economy that works for people, we face the twin challenges of small and local businesses being under massive pressure and some very large companies needing to be prodded to play fair and respect consumers. The Government’s proposals go some way towards dealing with the problems with big businesses, but totally absent from their agenda are things that would really help small and local companies, such as business rates reforms, measures to rejuvenate our high streets, and initiatives to encourage greater employment.
The Government’s plans include some welcome measures to better protect consumer rights and reduce costs. The energy independence Bill and the electricity generator levy Bill are long overdue attempts to ensure that consumers feel the benefit of our move towards renewable electricity generation and accompanying grid upgrades, including by reducing the effect of electricity prices being determined by a small amount of gas power generation. However, we need more and faster action on home insulation, a heating oil price cap and the creation of an energy security bank to finance critical green energy generation upgrades. These steps are exactly what we need. Climate change prevention cannot be done to people; it must be done with them, and the benefits have to be very clear to people, economy and planet.
The clean water Bill is an attempt to end the likes of Thames Water charging ever-higher water bills while delivering inadequate upgrades to reduce water leaks and sewage dumping, aided by a toothless Ofwat largely watching from the sidelines. What is missing from the Government’s proposals is the radicalism needed to assuage justified public anger by mandating water companies to publish the volume and concentration of discharges from emergency overflows and to end sewage dumping at key bathing sites by 2030, and by making all our water companies become customer-owned public benefit corporations.
The King’s Speech also lacks a credible plan to help more people to get into the workplace, which will happen only with investment in skills, education and training that adapt to changing societal and economic needs, in improvements to the Access to Work programme, and in research and insight into the many reasons why some people do not work.
On international matters, it is welcome that the Government have acknowledged the need to try to do something with their European partnership Bill. However, the Bill continues to reflect the Government’s self-delusion on the Europe issue. Those with expertise in the matter are clear that there is very little growth to be had by tinkering around the edges of our existing inadequate agreements with the European Union. Only by joining the customs union and single market will we regain the significant economic and security benefits of being part of humanity’s most successful peace and economic project. It is interesting that it apparently takes an undeclared leadership contest and crisis within the Labour Government for the idea even to start to be discussed and maybe accepted.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Olly Glover Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
A lot has been said on the nature of being a trade envoy and the fact that a special trade envoy role was created for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. The Minister quite rightly pointed out that today we would not recognise trade envoys as they were then.
The Minister also mentioned the excellent parliamentarian David Heath, who represented Somerton and Frome, which covered part of my constituency. David was a trade envoy when he served in Government. When he was the trade envoy to Nigeria and Angola, the Government would not pay for his yellow fever jabs in case he went somewhere else with yellow fever when not on Government business and derived some private benefit from the jabs, so he had to pay for his own. His wife Caroline tells me that the only thing he got out of his trips was food poisoning. Although it would be nice to think that there was not one rule for some and one for others, there clearly was. It is important that we understand the nature of the brief given to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor when he became trade envoy, because the others certainly were not getting massages on the taxpayer.
Although this debate concerns Mountbatten-Windsor, it is not about one man; it is really about the structural sexism embedded in our institutions. Violence against women and girls does not persist in this country for a lack of speeches in this Chamber, but because, structurally, it is still not treated as foundational to our policymaking. Many Members across this House are utterly committed to tackling violence against women and girls. Many have dedicated their political lives to this cause, often in the face of horrific abuse. This is not a party political issue, nor is it about individual commitment; it is about whether the system itself is designed to prioritise women’s safety. Too often, it is not. Defence, the Treasury and infrastructure are seen as core business, but violence against women and girls is too often siloed—assigned to one Minister, under one strategy—as if the safety of half the population were a niche concern, rather than a central test of whether the state is functioning.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
A powerful illustration of my hon. Friend’s point is that oral questions to the Minister for Women and Equalities is compressed into just 30 minutes before Prime Minister’s questions every few weeks. Does she agree?
Anna Sabine
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I will come to another example of the way in which such sexism is embedded.
I recently wrote to both the Minister for Housing and Planning and the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls to ask why the recent draft national planning policy framework made no mention of the safety of women and girls, as that document sets out how we design and build the spaces and places in which we live. The response from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government was jaw-dropping. It said:
“The NPPF is a planning document. It sets out guidelines for housebuilding and planning in England. The VAWG strategy is about protecting women and girls from violence and misogyny. It is unclear as to why anyone would expect the two things to be combined.”
If it is unclear to the Department responsible for planning that violence and women and girls should be considered in its work, we have a structural problem.
That is where structural sexism becomes inseparable from power. It matters who makes the decisions. In this country, a remarkably small circle of people—disproportionately male and drawn disproportionately from the same networks—still make the most consequential choices.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
This motion is first and foremost about the victims of the appalling crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his many associates, as well as the importance of protecting people from abuse of power. It also has significant implications for wider political culture.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) articulately outlined, this and previous Governments have been wracked by scandal of many kinds, and the whole Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor affair adds to that by making a very significant contribution to the already severe erosion of trust in our politics and institutions. That is why we are calling for a public inquiry into all aspects of UK and British citizen involvement with Jeffrey Epstein over many years. The inquiry would of course take account of police and criminal investigations, disclosure and the publication of relevant documents, but we must go further.
Daisy Cooper
Many people are talking about the different elements that could be examined during an inquiry, but I have heard some people say that an inquiry could become too big and take too long. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is precedent in this country for having public inquiries in two or more parts? The Government and Government Ministers, who I hope are listening, should consider that structure, so that issues that need to be considered urgently could be looked at sooner rather than later.
Olly Glover
My hon. Friend makes a practical proposal for how an inquiry could be conducted efficiently with appropriate prioritisation, so that the most urgent matters get looked at, rather than being bogged down in something that would take much longer.
We must go further. We must toughen the penalties for breaching the ministerial code. We must create an office of the whistleblower to protect, empower and encourage people with valuable information to come forward and to speak up. I support Liberal Democrat calls for an end to negative privilege protections that have prevented criticism of individuals in the royal family in this House, for the reasons set out during the debate.
Helen Morgan
As I have listened to this excellent debate, it has struck me that our establishment depends on the people at its heart being nice, trusted, good sorts who will not step out of line, and we do not have mechanisms in place to challenge when that turns out not to be the case. Does my hon. Friend agree it is important to have an office of the whistleblower, and to have other statutory bodies that put a code in place regarding our behaviour in this place and in wider public life, because such bodies will mean that we will not just rely on people being “good blokes”?
Olly Glover
I agree that far too much in British political and wider culture relies on taking things on trust and assuming that good motives and good intentions will win the day. Very sadly, the whole Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor affair shows that we cannot necessarily rely on that and that we need strong processes, procedures and protocols to make sure that we have the highest standards in public life.
We all hope that the necessary changes to prevent a repeat of the whole Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor affair, which is an abomination, and the wider Epstein disgrace can be made within the structures of our current system of constitutional monarchy. Should that prove not to be the case, then we risk calls for a change to our constitutional arrangements growing louder and more compelling.
Oral Answers to Questions
Olly Glover Excerpts(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Chris Bryant)
Without our small businesses, we as a country are nothing, which is why we have published the first small business strategy in 10 years. We are going to change the law to tackle late payment, unlock billions to support businesses to invest, and revitalise the British high street.
Olly Glover
Love Beer Brewery in Milton in my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage supplies fantastic ale for events and a number of local pubs. However, its viability is threatened by the freeze of income tax thresholds and the increase in beer duty. Its monthly beer duty costs are now between £1,500 and £2,000, and if its owner did not have a day job, it probably would not be able to survive. In that context, will the Minister say a bit more about what else the Government can do to support small businesses and small breweries such as Love Beer in Milton?
Chris Bryant
When I visited those at the de-alcoholisation unit at another brewery, the Budweiser factory just outside Newport, last week, they said that one of the really important things was being able to diversify, because of changing drinking habits in the UK. However, they also want the British Government to focus on making sure that businesses have access to capital and that people pay their bills on time. When we introduce legislation, as we intend to do later this year, which will tackle the problem of late payments, that will make a dramatic difference. It will be the most important piece of legislation in the UK in this field for 25 years.
Oral Answers to Questions
Olly Glover Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Jonathan Reynolds
I am always keen to support my hon. Friend, and I will certainly consider that legislation. We are not a protectionist Government—we welcome open and free trade—but we believe British goods can compete on quality, and his area is a fine example of that. Where British goods are being undercut, not by price and fair competition but by misrepresentation and fraudulent practices, we take that seriously and have taken more powers to deal with it. I am sure that he will raise this shortly during the urgent question. We will ensure that we give him the support he needs to pursue it.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)
I am unfamiliar with the particular case but concerned by that description. We inherited the export licensing system, and we are reviewing it as part of our ongoing work looking at all aspects of the Government’s work. If the hon. Member writes to me, I will certainly take a personal interest in the matter and write back to him.
Local Post Offices
Olly Glover Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
I join others in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for securing the debate, and I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for timetabling it.
As many Members have pointed out, post offices form a vital part of our local communities and high streets—millions of people depend on them—but in my Oxfordshire constituency, which contains many villages, they are under threat. These post offices are community hubs which play host to a number of services that are essential to local people and small businesses, particularly in rural areas. They provide vital human contact, and offer information and support for people who might otherwise be isolated, especially given suboptimal rural transport links. Just this week Karen Forman, a postmistress in Blewbury, told me that she had not only been contacted about many postal matters, but—this is relevant to what was said by the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer)—had been contacted about a lost cat and a lost bunch of keys, and had helped someone to locate a bank card.
As other Members have noted, many post offices are facing rising operating costs, and the services that they offer do not generate much revenue—an estimated 1.7p per transaction—which makes it hard to keep the lights on. We could do a great deal more to support our community branches. As we heard from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), post offices can provide vital local services, but only if they are properly supported and invested in, and are staffed appropriately. Could we, for example, make more use of post office hubs? Could they help people who are digitally excluded to book medical appointments on the internet, or provide services such as printing? Of course, we also need to secure justice for the wronged postmasters—and the flawed Horizon system is still being used—as well as giving more support to the people who have been neglected as a result of that scandal.
The post office network and the hard-working postmasters and postmistresses are in dire need of our support in villages such as Blewbury, and many more in my constituency and those of other Members.
Budget Resolutions
Olly Glover Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Certainly, the Budget has been on the minds of many of my constituents. It was even a topic of conversation with the owner of Gurkha Sunkoshi when I collected an Indian takeaway last night. I will say more about the impact on small businesses such as his shortly, but let me start with the positives.
It is certainly excellent to see the Government commit to NHS investment, which has been the subject of a key Liberal Democrat campaign, including in my constituency. I also welcome the compensation for victims of the infected blood and Post Office Horizon scandals. I agree with colleagues who have highlighted the point that the increase in carer’s allowance and SEND provision is welcome, but does not go far enough.
Nevertheless, there is much cause for concern for my constituents, particularly small business owners. GP and dental surgeries are concerned about rising costs as a result of increases to employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage. Alas, so far, they have not received assurances of additional funding to match the liabilities that they will face. Of course, they run the risk of needing to reduce staff recruitment or even lay off staff, which could add to pressures on the local health service.
The same issue applies to the wider small business and high-tech sectors in my constituency—including Indian restaurants. My constituency has been assessed by the Startup Coalition as No. 16 in the country for new businesses, not least thanks to our high-tech business parks: Milton park, Culham campus and the Harwell science and innovation campus. Those businesses will be worried about the ability to grow because of the costs that they face. Many of my colleagues have highlighted concerns about the proposed family farm tax. The Liberal Democrats call for an extra £1 billion a year in support for farming communities.
It is on transport policy that the Budget most disappoints. Perhaps, given the proposed increase in the bus fare cap and the above-inflation increases to rail fares, the Government are under the impression that working families only use cars. A season ticket from Didcot in my constituency to London, plus travelcard, already costs around £7,000 a year. Those policies undermine the Government’s stated objectives on economic growth, climate change and reducing congestion. I also regret that there is no commitment to local rail schemes in my constituency, such as a new station at Wantage and Grove, and electrification between Didcot and Oxford.
Today’s election result in the United States emphasises the importance of managing the economy and public services so that people feel listened to and supported. My fear is that some of the Budget measures will have the opposite effect, but I genuinely wish the Government success, and hope that they will listen to and address the many concerns raised by the Budget.
Paternity Leave and Pay
Olly Glover Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on securing this important debate.
It was a pleasure to welcome to Parliament parents, children and teachers from Europa school in my constituency last week. They were all campaigning with the Dad Shift, which the hon. Member has already mentioned, for paternity leave reform. The Dad Shift is calling for dads to be given substantial time that is affordable, so that everyone can afford to take it, enabling both parents to have equality of access to such leave.
The moral and economic case for equal parental leave is clear. In countries that offer at least six weeks of paternity leave, the gender pay gap is 4% smaller and the workforce participation gap is reduced by 3.7%. That shows that supporting parental leave not only strengthens British families, but helps to grow the economy. We Liberal Democrats believe that parents should have greater flexibility and choice over how to manage work with parenting in the first months of their child’s life. Greater equality in parenting will also lead to greater equality in the workplace, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) said.
With the forthcoming Budget, I very much hope that the Minister has sought opportunities to influence proceedings and to look for opportunities to improve parental leave. In the longer term, when the public finances allow, our ambition in the Liberal Democrats is to give all families six weeks of “use it or lose it” leave for each parent, paid at 90% of earnings, and 46 weeks of parental leave to share between them as they choose, paid at double the existing statutory rate. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.