Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to create a growth strategy for new businesses on the high street to help facilitate (a) growth in urban centres and (b) moves from shared premises to single units.

This Government is committed, through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, and the Levelling Up missions, to reinvigorate high streets and town centres.

We want to see thriving town centres and high streets. Government has already taken strong action by cutting business rates for many retail, hospitality and leisure properties and providing billions in regeneration funding and provided new powers to help places to reinvent their high streets and town centres.

High Street Rental Auctions will seek to increase cooperation between landlords and local authorities to make town centre tenancies more accessible and affordable for tenants, including SMEs and community groups.

Rental rates reflecting market value will allow a broad spectrum of tenants to occupy town centre properties, who might otherwise not have been able to afford higher rents. For example, local SMEs and community groups. In turn this will increase vitality, footfall, pride in place and business growth.