High Streets

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must highlight where the Government’s policies on the high street have failed.

There is a long list of initiatives, but the fragmented approach masks the lack of an overall strategic approach that would bring together local authorities, key stakeholders and communities to plan for and deliver real change in their town centres.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Before the hon. Lady moves on to her socialist selection of which stores it is right for people to purchase from, will she admit that the Government’s employment allowance, which will be introduced in 2015 and will reduce the cost of hiring people to work in shops, is a very welcome step in getting started the sorts of shops that people want to purchase from?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

It is very important to have a localist approach that encourages local people to get involved in shaping their high street. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman supported such an approach before all the changes that have been made over the past couple of years.

We want key stakeholders and communities to be brought together to plan and deliver change in their town centres. It is a pity that the Minister was not at the Local Data Company summit this morning, because he would have heard people saying that that was exactly what they wanted.

In his recent report, Bill Grimsey gave the Government some much-needed helpful advice. I will briefly highlight a few of his recommendations. He said that the Government should:

“Set an objective to repopulate high streets and town centres as community hubs encompassing: more housing, education, arts, entertainment, business/office space, health and leisure—and some shops”,

and

“Establish a Town Centre Commission for each town with a defined skill base and structure to build a 20-year vision for each town”.

He went on to say that they should establish five pilots to trial that immediately and called on the Government to

“Prepare for a ‘wired town’ vision or ‘networked high streets’”,

to review business rates and to require the owners of empty properties to seek a change of use class to bring properties back into occupation.

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[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. In fact, on Monday I was in Bedford seeing how the town has integrated the educational establishments into the town centre. That is a good example of how to bring the whole community together.

[Richard Fuller]

As the proud Member for Bedford, may I thank the Minister for visiting the town on Monday with Mary Portas? She said three important things: that Bedford is a beautiful town, which it is, that we have a glorious river, which we do, and that the best way for towns to work is for the community to work together on its future, which we are doing. Does the Minister agree with those three points?

[Brandon Lewis]

It was clear on Monday how proud of Bedford the team rightly are. They have done some great work, and it was a wonderful place to visit and to see some of it.

Given the time, I want to make a bit of progress. Some recent research suggests that the vacancy rates on high streets are beginning to plateau, after about 20 years of decline. If that is true, we should celebrate that—and celebrate the great British high street—but we must also look to do more. The coalition Government are committed to helping communities to adapt. We believe that plans and ideas for town centres must come from local areas themselves. It is for councils, businesses and communities to decide what their high streets and town centres will look like. Government cannot and should not look to bail out or prop up ailing high street businesses with taxpayers’ money, nor should we just introduce new taxes—as has been suggested by the Opposition—to create a level playing field of misery. Higher taxes destroy jobs and undermine enterprise. Government must support local people, building skills and spreading best practice.

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[Richard Fuller]

Presumably those places were built and have succeeded because that is how people want to shop. It is now very difficult to unbuild them. What is the hon. Gentleman’s answer? Does he want to change the decisions that people make about how and where they shop?

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely not. I was going to make the point that these are long-term trends. We cannot put the genie back in the bottle. However, we cannot get away from the fact that the way in which we shop has changed and one reason for that is the rise in the number of out-of-town shopping centres.

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[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I shall be brief so that my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) can also make a contribution.

I thank the Minister for his visit to Bedford this week. I am sure he would join me in congratulating the Bedford town team, the Bedford business improvement district, and particularly the leader of the Bedford business improvement district, Christina Rowe, who has provided strong leadership in difficult circumstances, on creating a vibrant response to the Government’s incentives and initiatives. I think it was the prospect of the Minister visiting Bedford that got the council belatedly to put through cuts in parking charges in the town centre. I hope that is just the start of the local council doing more to reduce parking charges in Bedford.

I want to address some of the points made by Opposition Members. My first admonition to them would be the old saying, “actions have consequences.” In relation to this debate, the actions of the previous Government have had consequences that we are seeing today. Will Labour Members recognise that the liberalisation of licensing laws, the changes that were put through in the Gambling Act 2005, and their Government’s lack of control of the massive growth in personal debt during their period in office led precisely to some of the concerns that they are talking about today?

I found their recommendations on stores and the selection of stores quite confusing. It was not clear whether they wanted people to choose which stores were in the town centre, or whether they wanted to tell people what stores should be in town centres. Perhaps I can help them by saying that those who want to give people more choice should liberalise and allow people to make their own decisions, but if they want to decide which stores are right for people, that is socialism. The socialist selection of stores that we have heard from Opposition Members is a flawed policy, which gives new meaning to Marks & Spencer. [Interruption.] I will not give way, as I want my hon. Friend the Member for Witham to have the time to make her speech.

I want to make three suggestions to my hon. Friend the Minister. First, on betting shops—this was the first question I asked when I became a Member of Parliament—will he consider getting rid of fixed-odds betting machines, and then act to do so? Such machines create tremendous incentives that make the local retail presence of betting shops far more likely. The change is long overdue.

Secondly, will the Minister think about service quality in town centres, and about ways of helping them to be creative in their provision of excellence? One of the differences between a large store and a small store is the fact that service interaction is much more important to the success of a small store, and I am not sure that we are doing enough to create excellence in service. Perhaps some of the initiatives to which Lord Baker has referred could help in that regard.

Finally, let me suggest that the example of the “gamesmakers”—the volunteers who, during the Olympics, came together to create a delightful experience for people who wanted to attend the games—could be extended to our towns. Perhaps we could create “townsmakers”. As we all know, McDonald’s is a purveyor of excellent service in its restaurants, and it also provided assistance during the London Olympics. I had a very interesting conversation with the franchise holder of McDonald’s in my home town. Perhaps the Minister could have a conversation either with Mr Ishmael Anilmis, the franchise holder of McDonald’s in Bedford—who is in himself an excellent story of progress and entrepreneurship—or with McDonald’s nationally about how the company can take what it has learnt from the “gamesmaker” experience, and use it to improve our town centres and the quality of service that they provide.