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Local High Streets

I agree. That would be a useful way forward. One difficulty is often the disparate freehold ownership on a lot of high streets. I certainly do not think that there is a need for a centralised plan, but there needs to be a vision that goes beyond simply ensuring that tenants are paying rent this year and next, and the one after. There needs to be a vision for 15 or 20 years. We always need to take into account what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury rightly said, which is that it is hard to put a finger on how high streets will look in 20 years' time. They have certainly changed every decade since the 1940s, due to different shopping habits. I am sorry that the two Members representing suburban London seats who were here earlier have gone. There are specific problems in suburban London, which I would not wish to put to one side. I have a great passion for London as a whole and recognise that there are certain advantages in representing a very central London seat. In Orpington, where my wife's family came from, and in Harrow, there are some fundamental problems, partly as a result of out-of-town shopping centres. A slight irony of the recent snowfall is that many people have not been able to get out in their cars to do that sort of shop, and have therefore been forced back to see the offering in their own high street. There are no easy solutions to all this. One possibility is to have a single landowner who can perhaps make an area special, look at flagship stores and, where possible, consider loss leaders. I want to touch on business improvement districts. In fairness, they are greatly to the credit of the previous Labour Government, who introduced elements of the legislation, and they have been a great success. In my own constituency, the New West End Company, which operates around Regent street, Bond street and Oxford street, has been a great success. We have seen various other business improvement districts around the Paddington Basin area, and demand is increasing. However, the money that has been spent by business improvement districts tends to be focused on aesthetics and on increasing the number of policemen to ensure that shoppers feel safer and that shops are less subject to crime. With local authorities facing difficult financial settlements not just for this year and next, but probably for the rest of this decade, I worry that this should not be seen just as a matter of substitution. I encourage town centres to consider going down the business improvement district route, although they will still see money being taken away by way of what should be the normal local authority responsibility. We need to bear that in mind, as we do supplementary business rates. I want to mention supermarkets, which have been touched on by other hon. Members. It is easy to criticise supermarkets. I have stood up for them previously in this Chamber, and I think that they do a tremendous job in many ways. They provide phenomenal choice that was unseen a decade or two ago. None the less, I accept what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) said—I think he referred to an oligarchy of sorts being adopted, although I cannot remember how he phrased it. I also worry that the grocery ombudsman route may not be an entirely sensible way forward. If we are to have a vibrant shopping centre, a flagship supermarket is almost always needed. Waitrose is in Marylebone high street in my constituency; we also see various Sainsbury's and Tesco stores, particularly some of the smaller ones. However, I would like to see newsagents playing a part in the high street, for example, and I would like supermarkets to show some responsibility by, for instance, not selling newspapers. That would ensure that newsagents within 50 or 100 yards of the supermarket had a chance to thrive. If there was a long-standing fishmonger nearby, let us hope that the local Sainsbury's or Tesco would not sell fish. In other words, we need to ensure that people do not have to do all their shopping in a particular Sainsbury's or Tesco—an all-singing, all-dancing supermarket—at the expense of the smaller stores. That would present the supermarkets, which do a tremendous job, with an opportunity to show a certain amount of self restraint, rather than having to be bossed around by an all-powerful ombudsman. Thank you, Mr Gray, for allowing me to speak. I look forward to other contributions to the debate.