High Streets

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

We all represent very different communities, and our town centres will be different as well. Those of us whose constituencies contain multiple towns will know that there can be great differences even within a few miles.

We cannot get away from the two major trends that everyone has talked about—namely, the impact of out-of-town shopping and the impact of internet shopping. Those factors are not going to go away. No one is proposing legislation to move the big sheds into the town centres or to ban the use of the internet as a shopping tool; it would be ridiculous if they did. Those factors make the challenge all the greater, because we have to make shopping in the town centre an experience. In the old days, people regarded the town centre as a destination in its own right. Now, it is an experience that they go for, during which they might undertake some shopping as well. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), is nodding. She will not be doing so in a moment.

I set up the town team in Folkestone in response to the Government’s Portas pilot initiative. That brought together the local authority, local politicians, the local business community, the chambers of commerce, local independent traders and the national chains that operate in the town, and allowed them to start to think about the sort of town centre experience they wanted. We set up that town team the best part of two years ago and, in that time, I have never been part of a conversation that focused, in the way that the hon. Lady’s did, almost exclusively on payday lending shops and bookmakers. I have never sat in a meeting with business people and heard them say, “The problem with this town is that we are being pushed out by betting shops.”

Some hon. Members might feel that they have too many betting shops, takeaways and payday lenders in their constituencies. We heard the speech by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), who set out her case passionately. In her case, the problem has happened already. The proposals that the hon. Member for City of Durham put forward would not help. Is Labour looking for the compulsory closure of the betting shops and payday lenders that are already there? If those shops are so bad, perhaps they should just ban them outright. If they are the curse of the high street, perhaps they should legislate to get rid of them. Labour is not proposing to do that, however. Hon. Members will have a view on whether there are too many of them; I suggest that the legislation we have to look at is not the Localism Act 2011 or anything that has come from the Department for Communities and Local Government. The problems are the consequence of the Gambling Act 2005, which was passed by the Labour Government. That is where the quarrel of the hon. Member for City of Durham quarrel should lie.

The hon. Lady did not mention the chambers of commerce in her speech. In fact, she was dismissive of the work of the town teams and did not focus on them at all. What we hear when we get representatives of the chambers of commerce and businesses round the table are suggestions for initiatives similar to the one described by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) in his interesting speech. In those initiatives, we see people coming together to plan events, to create something special and unique in the town centre that will bring people back into it. It is lots of those sorts of initiatives that will reverse the trends seen in many towns, particularly Folkestone in my constituency, where there is under-trading and people leave the town to do their shopping elsewhere. The challenge we face is to bring more of those people back in.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case. Does he agree that business improvement districts, such as the ones in my Truro and Falmouth constituency, provide good local solutions to the need to improve our town centres?

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which feeds into the debate on business rates, on which I shall touch. Calling for a big cut in business rates is bold, is supported by the business community and amounts to a very big tax cut. Like all tax cuts, it has to be provided for. What we have seen so far from the Government are cuts in taxes for small and large businesses. We have seen targeted relief through enterprise zones and regional growth funds, which help businesses on the high street as well as those in other locations. We have seen more work done, too, on business improvement districts. That support has been targeted in the areas where it can really help.

What we have seen from the Opposition side is a “rob Peter to pay Paul” exercise between the business communities—taking from some businesses and giving it to other businesses in a short-term and small way, which I do not believe will make any difference at all. It is by working together through business improvement districts and through supporting all businesses with tax cuts that we will see the changes that we need. Ultimately, good local plans will be the answer, as the towns come together to say, “This is the sort of experience we want to create.”

Members have been absolutely right to highlight the issue of parking. Guidelines from the last Government undoubtedly encouraged local authorities to reduce the number of cars in towns by encouraging people not to drive into the town centre, by increasing parking charges and by making it difficult for people to come into the towns to park. That has to be reversed. If we want to meet the challenge posed by out-of-town shopping centres or internet shopping, we must make it as easy as possible for people to come into the town centre and choose to do their shopping physically there, while providing them with a memorable, enjoyable and unique experience. All our efforts should be focused on reducing unnecessary charges and burdens. Many of us have fought campaigns in our own constituencies to keep free on-street parking in town centres, to encourage discretionary shopping and to bring people in.

The town teams and the business improvement districts have done particularly good work here, for example by encouraging the roll-out of wi-fi in town centres. We need to make our town centres places where people want to live, work and spend their time. We need to encourage more people to live in town centres through change of use so that people, as I say, live, work and enjoy their leisure time in the town centre. That is part of the new experience that we have to create.

Folkestone has seen a very successful regeneration of the old town area, which had seen high levels of closed shops and under-utilised space for many years, through the construction of a new creative quarter in the old town. Occupancy rates have gone up dramatically. In fact, all the properties that have now been refurbished by the Creative Foundation will be full by the end of October this year. That is a very positive change, which has led to a broad programme of exhibitions and events, and provided reasons for people to come into the town centre. Such an integrated programme shows how to revitalise our town centres; it will make more of a difference than anything else.

In my final few seconds, let me say that many of us are disappointed that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) was unsuccessful in his campaign to become Deputy Speaker. I know how hard he has worked to champion small businesses. The loss to the House in his not becoming Deputy Speaker is a gain for us in debate, as we will be able to benefit from his contributions in many more debates to come.