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Retail Development Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Given my association with the retail trade, I take an interest in the subject. Obliquely, I declare that which is registered. What mechanism will be applied so that the consumer is free to shop where they wish? The car-borne shopper is a phenomenon of the past 30 or 40 years. They exercise their right of choice and go to the large hypermarket or out-of-town supermarket, running away from what was in my boyhood the corner shop. Whether it was a Co-op or any other shop, the corner shop was the primary source of goods. What economic mechanism will provide the small shop with the additional revenue that it will require? I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, said about running away from regulation and interference. What does the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, believe can be done to sustain a shop in an area where the local populace, by its own choice, has gone elsewhere and brought about its downfall?