Save Our High Streets
Today Chuka Umunna MP, Shadow Minister for Small Business & Enterprise, and Jack Dromey MP, Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government launch Labour’s campaign to Save Our High Streets in conjunction with The People newspaper. Below is Chuka’s article on the issue, an abridged version of which appears in The People today.
School’s out and the summer holidays have started. Many will be grateful for some rest, relaxation, and time to think.
Last November Chancellor George Osborne was busily boasting that “Britain’s economic recovery is on track”. Since then it has flatlined under his watch. Like other countries we should be reducing our deficit but at a responsible pace that does not choke off growth. Because the Chancellor is cutting too far and too fast, he is putting jobs at risk.
Nowhere is this more evident than on Britain’s High Streets. Look around and what does one see? Boarded up shops growing in number, as confidence falls and people feel the pinch. Shops all over the country have been affected – from the local newsagent to well known brands. 50,000 units currently sit dormant. Jane Norman went under last month, Carpetright shut 75 stores and Habitat put 30 premises into administration. Thousands have lost their jobs.
Will Mr Osborne change tack given the circumstances? Not a chance. “There is absolutely no question of us coming off our plan” he said this week. Meanwhile Business Secretary Vince Cable has appointed Mary “Queen of Shops” Portas to look at what should be done to create more prosperous high streets. She doesn’t report until November but, in any event, it doesn’t look like the Chancellor will give the Business Secretary a chance to implement her recommendations.
So what is to be done? Today, Labour is launching a four point plan to save our High Streets – immediate action to prevent more shops being boarded up.
First, a temporary cut in VAT from 20% to 17.5% should be implemented. This would bring back confidence and put money into consumers’ pockets saving the average family £450 a year.
Second, as Labour’s Shadow Local Government Minister Jack Dromey has argued, local people should be given power to put the heart back into the high street in the Localism Bill which is currently winding its way through Parliament.
Next, a level playing field on the High Street should be promoted by putting a competition test into the planning system, ensuring big name retailers do not squeeze out the small local independents.
Finally, the government should repeat the bank bonus tax and use £200m of the money raised to boost the regional growth fund. £5 million of this could be used to fund an empty shops initiative to spruce up the high street, enabling councils to use vacant units for cultural, community or learning services, rather than leaving them empty.
Our local shops are not only businesses that provide vital opportunities and employment – they are part of the fabric that binds our communities together. The Tory led government should not be abandoning them, leaving them to struggle alone in these tough and uncertain times; it should act now before its too late.
