Margaret Mullane
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Town and City Centre Safety
Margaret Mullane Excerpts(1 day, 13 hours ago)
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Margaret Mullane (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)
It is an honour to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker) for securing this debate. Many of my constituents are in regular contact with me about safety in their town centres and local high streets. If criminals are allowed to prevail, law abiding residents feel unsafe and are deterred from popping to their high street and town centre. That adds to the deterioration of our high streets and town centres, which have already had 14 years of Tory austerity to help that process along.
Closed shops, rubbish piling up and an over-concentration of vape shops, barbers and betting shops hardly encourage visits to our communities. High streets and town centre shops matter: we build relationships with our shops and community spaces. Unless the police are given greater resources to tackle shoplifting in places such as Dagenham and Rainham, my residents will be put off visiting the shops. I welcome the Pride in Place funding for Barking and Dagenham, but what we need to focus on—this is a big issue in my constituency—is that when criminals feel that they can get away with shoplifting, crime escalates. In Elm Park in my constituency, one shopworker was assaulted. When the criminals could not get what they wanted without paying in one shop, they ran into another, stole its cash and assaulted the shopworker. The human cost is terrible: that worker was traumatised.
Without a doubt, we all enjoy shopping online, but equally, we take joy in popping out and visiting our local shops. Local authorities should think about local start-up businesses with short leases, look at the areas where great things work and share best practice. The Government will give councils the power to say no to businesses that do not enhance their area. I heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government give a sterling defence of our town centres and high streets on Sunday. I welcome that renewed focus from the Government and hope that we start to see the investment that is much needed for our high streets to thrive again.