Supporting High Streets

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Oldham has always been a town of hard work and heart. It has been built, rebuilt and reinvented time and again, and is reinventing itself again now, but let us be honest: the challenges facing Oldham, Chadderton, Royton and towns like them up and down the country are significant.

It has been interesting to hear the debate. We can all as parliamentarians reflect on just how much we care about the places we live in and represent, and that should be lauded. We have also heard honesty about the fact that much more should have been done in the past than was, and much more needs to be done than perhaps is being done. The pace has to be improved. I should say that I have every faith that the Government and the Minister will do just that. We understand the power and importance of place. Our high streets and town centres are, for many people, the barometer of how well the country is doing.

When I look at Chadderton, I see a fantastic place. I see a stable community that has terrific community pride, but it is a town without a single bank branch. It has seen very little new development, and quite a lot of the land that is ripe for development is held in private ownership by distant landowners who have no stake in the local community. In Royton—another a thriving town, just a couple of miles away—not a single bank is left in the town centre or the precinct, yet there are shoots of growth. The council invested in Royton town hall. New independent bars and restaurants are bringing life back into the centre, and a Thursday market is still thriving. That shows that when we support local businesses, the community responds with footfall and support. By the way, I think we too often take for granted and underestimate the importance of our local markets, whether they are indoor or outdoor.

Then there is Oldham itself—our borough’s heart—once home to a magistrates court, a county court, and many public sector agencies that have either reduced their presence or closed altogether. Stores such as Debenhams, BHS, HMV, Woolworths, H&M, Thorntons, WH Smith and Clintons were the anchors of the town centre and the shopping centre in the past, but unfortunately will not be in the future. Across the country, there are 20,000 fewer shops open than in 2010. Each closure is more than just a lost business. It is a small part of the town taken away. It is people’s jobs and livelihoods. It is the story of a place, and people’s memories; we have heard that in the debate.

Across the country, we see 6,000 banks closing. In my town, RBS and Barclays are closing, but we still have banks. It is really important that the Government’s strategies for investment, planning reforms, and schemes such as Community Britain, which give communities powers in the place where they live, do not allow the kind of free-for-all that we saw under the previous Government. Under the previous Government, banks were at the Government’s door when they needed a bail-out and times were bad, but walked away from our communities when it was time to repay money.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)]

The hon. Member makes a good point about bank closures. Does he agree that the innovation of banking hubs, which we have seen since 2022, is welcome? As of April this year, there were 150 around the country, and they can be a lifeline for many communities. Does he agree that the criteria applied by Cash Access UK for granting a banking hub can be quite narrow? I ask this for the Minister’s benefit. Would the hon. Member join me in urging the Government to reconsider and review some of the narrow criteria? In Portchester, we are campaigning for a banking hub—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. Jim McMahon to continue.

[Jim McMahon]

I will. I have heard the right hon. and learned Lady raise that point a few times, and I think it is legitimate. If the criteria do not work for the town she mentions, or for my town, or Royton or Chadderton, then the criteria are the problem, not the towns and communities that need banks. We can agree on that.

In Oldham, there is progress. Sometimes we rush to a deficit model of talking down our places a bit too quickly. The old town hall, built in 1841, was left derelict for decades but has been reborn as a cinema. The grand Egyptian Room has been restored to life. It was once a banking hall where people paid their council tax, but I guarantee that it is a lot more popular today than it was when it was used for that purpose. The old library, built in 1883, was long empty; it is now home to the new council chambers and the inspiring Oldham theatre workshop. Every single week, 600 young people go through those doors to celebrate the arts and culture. The Spindles shopping centre has been transformed with the new indoor Tommyfield market, an events space and the local studies archive. That shows how the community can benefit when we invest in our towns. Of course, as has been mentioned, we should use derelict brownfield sites to build housing for local people. In Oldham, that will mean up to 2,000 new homes in the town centre—decent, safe and affordable places to live—and footfall in the town.

Much though we talk about the household names that have been lost, let us not forget that many of our towns are built on the work of independent traders—local people who give something of themselves, and sometimes their life savings, to invest in our towns. They should be celebrated.

Things are not easy. Online retail now accounts for 25% of retail sales. Business rates changes will shift the balance in favour of the on-street, local, independent traders, and convenience stores. There is also the changing dynamic between out-of-town retail and city centres. We have the benefit of being on Manchester’s doorstep, but it means that it is easy for Oldham’s people to travel to Manchester. In large towns, we have seen the hyper-local becoming more popular. District centres like Royton, where people want to create somewhere to go, are thriving, and our cities are thriving, but the towns, somewhere in the middle, are struggling. We need a strategy for our towns, as well as wider investment.

The same goes for the planning system. Honestly, I am sick to death of seeing low-quality, substandard accommodation being built in my town. Under the previous Government’s free-for-all, office accommodation could be converted in a blink, and there was also conversion to houses in multiple occupation. The concentration of social pressures in town centres and district centres is having a real impact on community safety and the local housing market.

There is a different way. Through Community Britain, we can rebuild our towns, civic pride and confidence. Through co-operation, we can give power to people in the places where they live and that they care about. We can end the top-down model of command and control, in which we tell people what they need for their area. We should give money to communities, so that they can decide matters for themselves and collectively co-produce solutions for their places.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stuart]

We see it in speech after speech from Labour Members. Perhaps it is because of the careers they have had. They think the key to unlocking the high street, or indeed the wider economy, is public investment. It is not; it is about government getting out of the way. Of course we need a facilitating local and national government, but here are the fundamentals: it is not their money—the money of government—which businesses are allowed to have; and it is not their space, which businesses are allowed to occupy. It is our space—the people’s space—and government is there to facilitate and support, humbly. But humility is something that the Labour party never seems to display when it comes to dealing with business. All it ever does is seek to tax it.

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a great deal of respect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

On the basis of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, he must support a rise in the national living wage. That is the purest form of a contract between the employer and the employee and, of course, that money goes straight back into the local economies in the towns that he speaks about.

[Graham Stuart]

Of course, we did lift the minimum wage by more than, I think, any other Government. But if we go too far and do what this Government did with young people—making them cost the same as older people, even though they have no experience—funnily enough, they do not get a job.

Of course, Government Members trumpet about the Employment Rights Bill: “Oh, we are providing all these rights for workers!” That is not much use if people are pushed out of the labour market. I thought the Labour party was supposed to care about the marginalised. Well, the marginalised are the people who are missing out—not your fat, union-backed workers getting vast pay at vast cost. Billions were spent paying off the union paymasters of the Labour Government, while young people are once again disadvantaged, and people who are far away from the labour market because of mental health or other issues are pushed further away from it.

Let me give the House an example from my constituency. It does not get much more rural or isolated than down in Kilnsea, just above Spurn point, and if you go to the Crown & Anchor there and speak to those publicans, you will hear that it is this Government, not 14 years of the Conservatives, who have increased their taxes, meaning that they are not taking on a young person—a young person who would have had their first chance. I know those guys are absolutely committed to finding people who are far away from the labour market, providing a nurturing environment and helping them get into work, but that dream is being killed by the Labour party.

I spoke to Viki Foster, careers leader at Withernsea high school, who shared how valuable the right business support in schools can be, and how much more schools could do if they had the resources to match. Our plan will launch business challenges in schools, introduce entrepreneur-led mentoring schemes and provide seed funding from government, so that we can unlock the potential of the next generation. There is a role for government, but it is in facilitating. We have got to make sure that government does not crush and oppress business, but supports it instead.

Starting a business is one thing, but keeping it going is another. Around 60% of businesses fail within the first three years. They need our support, because when Toll Gavel in Beverley or Market Place in Hedon thrive, that creates jobs, boosts spending and drives stronger growth for Britain.

Labour just does not seem to get it. From listening to the speeches today, there seems to be no limit to the amount of tax the Government think can be imposed on business—as long as it is channelled into public investment in their particular constituencies, they think that will grow the economy. They can come here to trumpet and name a vast number of public investments, but if the overall position is that young people are further away from the labour market than they were before, if entrepreneurs and people who would have had high-growth businesses are moving abroad, and if high net worth individuals are dissuaded from working hard in this country, or, worse still, move abroad, then all of us are poorer—our high streets in particular.