The Future of the High Street

Liz Twist Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Like many other hon. Members, earlier this year on Independents’ Day, I spent the day visiting local shops in my community: businesses such as Stobo’s fruit and vegetable shop in Crawcrook, Simply Local in Sunniside or the Paris Dress House in the Metrocentre—a whole range of them. Last Friday and Saturday, Small Business Saturday, I visited places such as TLC Laundry Services on the high street in Birtley. Unlike many constituencies, Blaydon has many small towns and many small parades of shops. It is vital that we do not forget those smaller groups of shops when we talk about our high streets, because they are the centre of our local communities.

I am particularly keen to talk about retail and shopping in the high street, because in my constituency of Blaydon, 28% of jobs are in the retail sector—I used to say that it was about a quarter, but the latest figure from the Library shows that it has increased as a proportion—and there are many more than that in hospitality on our high streets. So our smaller retail centres are hugely important, although in Blaydon we also have the Metrocentre, which, if I may correct the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), I believe is still the largest covered shopping centre. That, too, is hugely important to us for jobs, although it is going through some difficult times, like the rest of retail.

In fact, the House of Commons Library tells me that there are 520 retail sites across Blaydon, centred in Blaydon, Birtley, Whickham, Ryton, Crawcrook and Sunniside, each with a range of retail, leisure and hospitality. As we have heard, all of them face challenges from the internet and covid-19. It is vital that we support those businesses to keep going. I also want to say something in support of charity shops, because they are now an important part of our high street and themselves face difficult times because of covid-19.

Finally, the retail workers who work in those shops are key workers. They are the people who were on the frontline, ensuring that we got the food. They stocked the shelves so that we were able to carry on during the lockdown, and that was often without recognition or a lot of safety features. Today, I hope that we will recognise the work of those shop workers in keeping our communities going.