Supporting Small Business — House of Commons, 2021-10-19
Topic: Law and Crime
Thomas Patrick Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): Over £3 billion has been provided through the town deal programme—something that I believe all hon. Members should welcome. This is vital support, but time and time again, scorn has been poured on it and I think that is regrettable, because I would have thought that the town deal is something that we can all get behind and look at all the different ways that it supports local business I would like to talk about crime and antisocial behaviour, which is something that I think must be tackled if we are to support businesses on our high streets as they recover from the covid pandemic. I mention this with respect to both the night-time economy and the fact that, time and time again, I come across and am contacted by businesses in Ipswich who are victims of persistent crime, including shoplifting and everything else. This is a blight on their existence, so we need to have, in my view, a zero-tolerance approach to this kind of, as some people might call it, "low-level antisocial behaviour and crime", but there is nothing "low-level" about something that happens week after week and seriously affects your ability to operate as a business. We need to have that zero-tolerance approach We are getting 20,000 extra police officers, but I would like to see a review of the national police funding formula. In Suffolk, we are getting between 50 and 60 new police officers, but, if we were funded fairly, it would probably be closer to 100. We need to look at that and at the night-time economy, because we do have a problem in Ipswich with crime. We also have a problem with drugs—drug-dealing and drug-taking—in the town centre, particularly on a Friday and Saturday night. The concern that I have is that you do not have that positive police presence and positivity, so negative influence can come into the town centre. Tackling crime and antisocial behaviour in our town centres must be part of supporting businesses as they recover from the covid pandemic. I support the opportunity to debate this, and I agree with many hon. Friends that business rates should be looked at. We should strive for a level playing field, and we are so far away from having that level playing field. We see businesses that are rooted in our constituencies, and could not be more local and more important to the functioning of our local communities, unable to co-operate I think we should strive for a situation in which our town centres continue to be key retail centres. There may be some that are more residential, but we should not give up on a significant component of town centres and city centres being retail. For that to happen, we need a serious look at business rates. I was pleased to see that beer duty may also be looked at, which would be vital to the hospitality sector in Ipswich I do think that there needs to be less churlishness, because the Government have provided unprecedented support for businesses throughout the pandemic. Over £400 billion has been spent—£7.6 million in Ipswich alone has been spent on restart grants and furlough—so we need to have that debate. There needs to be an appreciation that at some point there will have to be a reckoning when it comes to public finances It is one thing to say, whenever there is a spending commitment or a debate about spending money, that we will always agree to it, but we cannot at the same time vote against the move to withdraw restrictions, which at least gave businesses in my constituency an opportunity over the summer to breathe and recover from the trauma that they have experienced throughout the pandemic. There are challenges ahead when it comes to covid, but I think it was right to allow businesses to recover in the summer period.