Supporting High Streets

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

To coin a phrase, we are not going to balance the books of local government on the back of entrepreneurial businesses that are keeping our high streets alive, providing services for the community and allowing our economy to grow.

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

When the shadow Minister’s party came into government in 2010, I was working in the Animal store in Queens Arcade in Cardiff, which was an anchor institution there: it brought people in, and ensured that retail was thriving in the community. When his party left government 14 years later, the Animal store was closed, as were the majority of the other units in the arcade. Can he comment on why that happened on his party’s watch?

[Andrew Griffith]

I am not sure that we were in charge in the particular area that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but I am pleased to know that, like so many of us, he had his first experience of work—his first leg-up, his first work opportunity—in the retail and hospitality sector. It is hugely important, and gives people great opportunities in life.

I have talked about our promises—[Interruption.] I do not want to get too deflected by stories about the Animal store, of which the hon. Gentleman clearly has enormously fond recollections, and where he spent many a happy hour.

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I instinctively agree with my hon. Friend’s constituent, even though I have never met him, but I wish him well—I was worried that I should have remembered meeting him, but I realise now that I have not, so there is no early onset.

If the Government really wanted to raise national insurance, surely they should have made a major change by not imposing it on small retail outfits, and certainly not small shops and shopkeepers. It has been a disaster, frankly, and it has added massively to the bills. Another huge problem for these businesses is the rise in electricity costs, which is not necessarily to do with the strike price of gas but is massively down to the fact that we are now charged huge amounts on our bills simply to subsidise the unbelievably high-paced drive to get to net zero, which will affect many of them.

I recommend that the Government look again at the hospitality sector, which has lost 100,000 jobs. As has been said, 100,000 jobs lost in any other industry would have been a major issue debated on the Floor of the House. It is a huge number. This is an industry where many people start their businesses, and these pubs, restaurants and so on are high points on our high streets.

Added to all this, Labour councils seem incapable of understanding why parking charges are a real problem for these businesses. The council in my area now levies very restrictive parking charges on high streets. The trouble is that many high street businesses rely on passing trade—somebody who wants to get one thing pulls in for 15 minutes of free parking, goes over to another shop and buys something there before getting back into their car. Free parking encourages people to do that. My high streets—particularly Station Road—have seen a significant fall-off in trade simply because of those parking charges being imposed. It is not helpful.

[Adam Thompson]

In my area, the Conservative administration brought in a parking charge after Labour campaigned extensively for free parking. I was reassured by the local council recently, because the data showed that parking charges actually made no difference at all to footfall. Could the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that, in many areas, small parking charges do not make an awful lot of difference?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I do not have a Conservative council to criticise, although I would criticise it if it had done that. It was a Labour council that introduced these charges, and they have had a dramatic effect on those who would have come to shops. A small bookshop that has been there for many years is now thinking about calling it a day. That is a real problem, and it is bonkers to add that to the other problems these businesses have.

Something that ruins high streets and causes real problems is the inability of local authorities to control the number of adult gaming centres on the high street. I and many others are campaigning to get the Government to allow local authorities to make a decision about that, rather than being overridden. I hope the Government will look at that in due course.

The big thing that is affecting our high streets above all else is the crime and shoplifting going on. We have had a huge problem in our main shopping centres. These people go into shops and are violent. They threaten the shopkeepers, who are often pressed to the wall while they take thousands of pounds—this is not £1 or £2; thousands of pounds of goods are robbed from shop shelves. Those who are shopping are also threatened, and it drives people out of the high street.

We have tried hard to bring this all together, so that the shops report the crime and the police are there for it, but despite that, this crime is still rising. One of the biggest problems is that when a shoplifter is arrested, they say that they wish to be tried in the Crown court. They know full well that the backlog in the Crown court is so great that they will be out on the street again that afternoon. The Government should consider carefully whether shoplifters should be allowed to do that, and whether magistrates courts, which do not have a backlog, should be doing summary charges on shoplifters in criminal cases—with limits, obviously—which would get them off the street that day, not back on the streets committing crime again.

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[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

Like people around the country, my constituents are tired of watching their high streets decline. They are tired of seeing good, local businesses close, replaced by dodgy barbers, vape shops, betting shops, or worse: nothing at all, with the shop left to rot. The decline in our high streets is a political choice that was made knowingly by the Conservative party over 14 years. The Conservatives stripped our local councils of power, defunded them and prevented them from intervening on their own high streets. The Conservatives have brought forward an Opposition day debate on an issue that they themselves powerfully undermined for more than a decade.

I am proud that this Government are taking a different approach. Through the pride in place funding, residents of Cotmanhay in my constituency are receiving £20 million to invest in their community over 10 years. When I met Cotmanhay residents at a community meeting the weekend before last, I was struck by their enthusiasm and general desire to improve our community. Many people in Cotmanhay are brimming with ideas of how to revitalise the area and, for the first time, they are being listened to and given the power to make the changes that they want to see in their area.

I am also pleased that councils will finally be given greater power to say no to fake barbers, vape shops and bookies, which we all know are covers for the drugs industry. Councils will be able to seize boarded-up shops, save derelict pubs and create space for genuine, innovative businesses that will revive our high streets. Strong local government and community empowerment are the best ways that we can revitalise our high streets. Residents ultimately know best what their towns need.

[Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should also look at the police having the power to close illegal shops and stop them trading immediately, rather than having to take lengthy processes through the courts before they can be closed down?

[Adam Thompson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that very reasonable point, although I think it is probably more a question for the ministerial team than for me.

I am extremely proud to work with Labour-controlled Erewash borough council, which has been taking a lot of firm action recently on our declining high street. Since taking control of the council just two and a half years ago, the Labour council has been tackling absentee landlords and negligent property owners, including those responsible for the decaying Wigfalls building on Bath Street in Ilkeston, which has been decrepit for more than 20 years. The owners have been given a clear choice: invest in their properties, with council support, and show pride in our town centres, or face enforcement through a section 215 clean-up order.

My colleagues on the council have also massively expanded the council’s shop signage grant, offering local businesses up to £2,000 for new signage. The scheme has been extended beyond our immediate local centres—beyond the hubs in Ilkeston and Long Eaton—including Cotmanhay, Kirk Hallam and Sawley. It will help us to brighten our towns and villages and to support small, independent businesses across the borough with direct intervention.

The measures this Government are taking to empower local councils and finally end the scandal of underfunding in councils across the north and the midlands will strengthen the hand of dedicated local authorities such as Erewash and communities such as Cotmanhay in the fight against empty town centres. It is time for us to focus on innovation over stagnation, on the grassroots over national diktat and on pride over neglect. I am deeply proud that this is the Labour Government’s approach.