High Street Businesses

We have announced plans to reform business rates, launched high street rental auction powers for councils that will help businesses to access currently vacant properties, worked with industry to open over 150 banking hubs, and introduced the Crime and Policing Bill to provide retailers with greater protections from assault and shoplifting. Our forthcoming small and medium-sized enterprise strategy will set out our further plans to help businesses on the high street and beyond.

Chester South and Eddisbury is home to some truly special high streets, lined with independent shops and pubs that play a vital role in the life of our communities. I have spoken to local business owners, especially in hospitality, who are already feeling the pressure. Following the spending review, the chief executive of UKHospitality said that “the overwhelming challenge holding back hospitality from meeting its potential is the current tax burden”. Does the Minister accept that unless action is taken to ease the burden on high street businesses, especially in hospitality, the Government risk undermining the very communities they claim to support?

I say gently to the hon. Lady that when she had the conversations that she says she had with businesses in her constituency, I am sure she pointed out the huge economic mess that this Government inherited and the £22 billion black hole in public finances. That is why the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to make some very difficult decisions in last year’s Budget. We have set out a series of plans that will make a genuine difference on our high streets, including new opportunities to persuade landlords to open up premises for rent. We will set out further plans in the coming small business strategy, and our industrial strategy will also help to generate growth in high streets and beyond.

The town of Burntwood in my constituency has a high street that has been struggling after 14 years of neglect by the Conservatives. One of the things holding Burntwood back is the lack of access to high street banks. Will the Minister update us on what the Department is doing to support access to banking in our high streets as a key pillar of driving the regeneration of high streets like the one in Burntwood?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on the need for face-to-face banking in communities and high streets up and down the country. We are committed to working with the banks to roll out 350 banking hubs by the end of this Parliament, but we also think that the Post Office can do more to help to improve access to banking services. On the particular issue in his constituency, if it would be helpful, I would be very happy to sit down and talk to him about what else he might be able to do to secure a banking hub for his constituents.

I call the shadow Minister.

The Retail Jobs Alliance is very clear in its warning that the Government’s changes to business rates will “accelerate the decline of high streets, reducing footfall…and creating a cycle of economic downturn.” That letter was also signed by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—a Labour-affiliated trade union. Once again, the Minister and the Department for Business and Trade have a choice. Will they stand up for high street retailers, actual employers and even their own affiliated trade union, or will they just go along with Treasury diktat?

Once upon a time, the Conservatives supported business rates reform to help the high street; the hon. Gentleman now seems to be shifting his party’s policy. Indeed, time after time his Government promised that they would reform business rates, but one of the reasons they lost the confidence of British business at the last election was because they did not act to reform business rates. We have said that we will introduce permanently lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer set out our initial thoughts on that in the Budget in October, and we will publish an update on where we are on that issue in the coming months.

We support business rates reform, but when Labour’s own trade union says that its plan is not going to work, Ministers should really sit up and listen. Let me turn to another issue affecting our high streets: shoplifting—which continues to devastate many high street retailers. I see that in my own constituency in high streets in Princes Risborough, Wendover and Great Missenden. How is the Minister actively engaging with the Home Office, police and crime commissioners and police forces to move shoplifting up the agenda across the board, just as my home force of Thames Valley has done with its Disc scheme? Before he comes back with police numbers, let me tell him that there are more police in Thames Valley than ever before, let alone since 2010. Just talking the talk on numbers is not enough. What is he going to do proactively to make this issue go up the agenda?

I think the hon. Gentleman, in his own way, is congratulating the Government on increasing police numbers in his constituency, and he is certainly right to do so. We have committed to an extra 3,000 police officers over the course of this financial year and a total of an extra 13,000 by the end of this Parliament. We are also taking action to end the immunity that his party introduced for shoplifters and taking steps to increase the powers that the police have to take action when shoplifters and others are violent against retail staff.