The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but I would say that it varies from place to place. Across the country we have various types of high street, in towns small and large, so it varies depending on the nature of the area and whether it is urban or more rural. It would depend on that right across the country.

As I say, there will no doubt be considerable pressure to designate a large number of high streets from the beginning of this Bill becoming an Act, but I fear that it would prove overwhelming and we should safeguard against this. I say that with a certain trepidation, because there are six historic market towns in the modern city of Stoke-on-Trent. The idea of designating more than three high streets is tempting, because each town has a high street that could, and indeed should, be designated at some point in a rolling process of improvements across the city. I accept that this may prove something to revisit at later stages of the Bill.

The eagle-eyed in the House will have noticed that, for the purposes of the Bill, high street uses mirror those already legislated for in part 10 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. This encompasses a good range of what would ordinarily be seen as high street uses by the general public and does not specify an exact number of retail addresses within a certain distance, as attempted in the ONS’s experimental definition.

Members will be interested to know that the ONS discovered what it calls

“one notable geographic feature in England” in what was otherwise a distribution of retail addresses on high streets across the whole of Great Britain that showed no clear pattern across the country. The English feature—this is germane to an English Bill—is that there are hub towns with a higher proportion of retail addresses on their high streets. Hub towns are those that are identified in the official rural-urban classification for England as being important hubs for the rural areas around them because they provide services, employment and businesses. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs includes towns like Stone and Cheadle, in north Staffordshire, in this category. There will be a need for improvement plans to be consulted on beyond the immediate town and rural areas that depend on high streets’ success in these hubs.

There is a great deal of data, and it is time for local authorities to use this to best effect and focus attention on preserving, enhancing and reviving our high streets. They should do this in concert with the communities they serve—both businesses and residential.