High Streets

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

Absolutely. I think that the Minister made it obvious that he does not understand what is going on.

At the time, all our objections related to betting shops. The bookmakers themselves denied the association between betting shop clusters and antisocial behaviour, yet there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. A leaked memo from William Hill instructs staff

“not to contact the police when…customers…damage machines…to reduce the number of reports to the police”.

So we really know that there is a problem in our high streets. It is clear to me that the planning laws need to be strengthened in the interests of local people, and not done away with in the way that the Government propose.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I have heard that recently, in East Ham high street, someone smashed up a machine and there was no report to the police for exactly the reason that my right hon. Friend has mentioned: the betting shop chain wants to minimise the number of reports to the police of antisocial behaviour.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

The people who own such premises will not take responsibility, and in some senses they are unable to do so. That is the problem. Where there are betting shop clusters, there is associated antisocial behaviour, and none of us has the powers to tackle it. As my right hon. Friend says, even the police are not being informed. It is an absolute scandal.

When the local campaign began, the concern was entirely about betting shops. Why did the financial institutions leave our community? They left because they were not making enough money, because people in Deptford do not have enough money to enable banks and building societies to thrive. So what do we have now? We have institutions that are taking the very money that those people did not have in the first place. As I have said, it is an absolute scandal.

Let me put the situation in context. Lewisham is the 31st borough in England in the indices of multiple deprivation. That is very serious. Two of the wards that cover the high street are among the 10% most deprived in England. Is this, I ask the Minister, a community that needs betting shops and payday lenders? Is this not in fact people preying on the most vulnerable in our society and causing them to lead lives that are even more wretched than some of them were in the beginning? We find this utterly unacceptable, and the Minister has given us no hope today that he is going to do anything about it. [Interruption.] Yes, he is making it worse.

Let me spell it out. In Deptford High street, Nos. 14, 37, 38 to 40, 44, 48 to 50, 52, 60, 70, 72, 93 to 95, 175 and 206 are all either a betting shop, a payday loan shop or a pawn shop. Does the Minister honestly believe this is what local people want? Is this not the Government again refusing to act in the interests of local people, and backing big business against small traders?

Having said all those negative things, we have a very vibrant and robust community, with people who want to see their community thrive, who want to open small businesses, who want to shop in small businesses, and who have organised among themselves an annual Deptford X festival, as we have lots of artists in the area. This is a community that deserves better from this Government. We have a new library, we have a new school, we have a new public square; they are all sitting there on the high street. We have done many of the things the Minister urges local authorities to do. Currently, the Lewisham local authority is spending a grant from the Mayor of London with match funding of £2 million, but I ask the Minister this: what is the point of doing all that and at the same time ruining the high street through this proliferation of very undesirable businesses? I am not against gambling, and I have certainly borrowed money myself—although not at the rates of interest of payday loaners—but there is a limit to how many of these shops we actually need in any one place, and the limit needs to be set.

Government Ministers promised to take us seriously. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and I had several debates in which Ministers stood there and said they would take the issue seriously, that they understood it, and that something would be done. The Conservative website promises to

“put…power in the hands of local people”

and describes the big society as promising

“a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities.”

What hypocrisy is this!

Local people are crying out for a change in policy to end the ruination of our high streets and to return the high streets to places with the diversity and vibrancy that our community and many others have to offer. Nothing less than Labour’s proposals to do something about the use classes order, to create a situation whereby a local council can respond to local needs, is going to solve the problems and meet the wishes of local people.

The Minister needs to explain to us tonight why under this Government local people can have no say in their local community development and their local high street, and not have their wishes for their shopping patterns and the needs of their community met. That is the challenge to this Government, and they need to say something better than what the Minister said in his opening speech tonight.