Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent assessment she has made of trends in (a) the level of economic activity on the high street and (b) the rate of (i) retail and (ii) hospitality outlets closing.

My Department monitors high street economic activity closely. Sales data from BDO High Street tracker^[1] show that total in-store sales grew 5.1% in June 2023, driven by strong fashion sales (+7.2%), with in-store sales now 14.8% above June 2022 levels. Data from the British Retail Consortium^[2] show that high-street footfall increased by 0.6% in June 2023 compared with the same month in the previous year, up from -0.5% in May.

ONS data^[3] show that in 2022, both the hospitality and retail sectors had a business death rate of 15%.^[4] More recently, business deaths increased in hospitality (+44%) and retail (+20%) in Quarter 1 2023 compared with the previous quarter. However, business creations in both sectors also increased over the same period, with creations in the hospitality and retail sectors up 30% and 16% respectively.

Government recognises the pressures faced by high street businesses, which is why the Autumn Statement 2022 announced a package of changes to business rates worth £13.6bn over the next 5 years in lower bills. This is in addition to the Energy Bills Discount Scheme.

[1] https://www.bdo.co.uk/en-gb/high-street-sales-tracker/previous-reports

[2] https://brc.org.uk/news/corporate-affairs/footfall-slowed-during-june-heatwave/

[3]https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/datasets/businessdemographyquarterlyexperimentalstatisticsuk

[4] Business deaths as the proportion of the total number of businesses in each sector. Business counts data taken from ONS business counts data here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/datasets/ukbusinessactivitysizeandlocation