My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests: I am one of the proud members of the growing number of vice-presidents of the LGA; I am also a serving county councillor on Hertfordshire County Council.

It has been an interesting debate and very helpful to hear from members of the Built Environment Committee —I am grateful for their input. I say from the outset that we will not oppose the Bill, on the basis that doing something, even something that represents a drop in the ocean, is usually better than doing nothing. However, I have much sympathy with the view of the Local Government Association, which characterises the Bill as unnecessary and a distraction from what councils really need to protect and enhance the future of their high streets. It recognises that what is really needed is a stable policy environment for high streets and planning, with sufficient resources and long-term growth and regeneration funding.

Much of my last eight years has been spent engaged with partners on the £1 billion regeneration programme for Stevenage town centre. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that it is not quite the Champs-Élysées, but our town centre in its early days was very influential in the development of Rotterdam.

We were very fortunate to have excellent advice from the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, in the early days, and the support of the noble Lord, Lord Porter, when there were unnecessary and unhelpful roadblocks put in our way, and we have ongoing support from the High Streets Task Force. We are now well under way with our project, to the extent that the noble Lord, Lord Harrington, in his excellent review of foreign direct investment last November, used us as a positive case study, saying:

“This approach is reflected in the collaborative work between Reef and UBS (developer and funder), and Stevenage Borough Council as both Local Planning Authority and landowner, to secure a new £65 million headquarters for Autolus Therapeutics. This development is the first of its kind globally and there is no other Town Centre advanced manufacturing cell and gene therapy facility across multiple floors”.

That was a really big plus for us.

I will talk more about purposefully driving footfall in this way in a moment, but I have mentioned this because I fear that there is an element in the Bill of pointing the finger of blame at local councils, many of which are currently trying to scale some of the obstacles that we too faced. As the tumbleweed of this Government’s 14 years of economic failure rolls through our town centres, both in actual and symbolic terms, it leaves communities feeling bereft, neglected and forgotten. Just this morning, we heard that the dreadful milestone of the 6,000th high street bank to close had been reached. Too many post offices that sat at the heart of neighbourhood high streets have been closed, presumably by the same dreadful decision-makers who imposed such misery on their own sub-postmasters.

The Government seem to stand by paralysed as the rise of overseas online retailers, such as Temu, almost literally steals the clothes from our retailers’ backs, with loss leaders that are surely paid for in less than ideal terms and conditions for workers. The uncertainty of the economic climate holds back investment in our high streets, and those brave enough to try, as the noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, pointed out, find themselves penalised by an antiquated and inflexible business rates system and soaring energy costs. The catastrophic funding crisis facing local government, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hanworth, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, leaves too many councils too paralysed by pressures on adult social care, children’s services and temporary and emergency accommodation to give the necessary focus to economic development and place-making.

A combination of the impact of the cost of living crisis on our communities and a perception that public spaces feel unsafe drives people further towards online retail. I also point out that our attempts to amend the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill to further level the playing field between online and high street retail fell on deaf ears, sadly. We cannot turn the clock back on internet shopping, but we can surely ensure that it does not continue to enjoy the very significant financial advantage it currently has over high streets.

As well as these national issues, councils will face all the issues we did over complex ownership. There are more than 60 owners of property in my town centre to be worked through, as so ably articulated by my noble friend Lord Hanworth. Then there is the challenge of how we preserve heritage and history, and the constant challenge of successive funding pots, all with different demands and constraints and draining scarce council resources to put bids together, not to mention the issue of permitted development riding roughshod over our local plans, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mair, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.

We have a positive story to tell in Stevenage, but this was achieved in spite of the barriers and obstacles we encountered. Following the wise principles set out by Bill Grimsey, we started with master-planning, engaging our community, developing strong cross-sector partnerships and attracting key private sector partners, concentrating on driving footfall, with new homes, workplaces and flexible workspaces in the town centre to support existing retail and offer new hospitality opportunities. Our public sector hub, planned with colleagues from both councils, the NHS, the police and others, will soon be in the development phase and we have developed a whole culture and leisure strategy to reinvigorate our town centre, with event space, new leisure and sport facilities and green spaces. We have capitalised on our strategic transport location with a station gateway project, including the development of a new bus station and linking our 45 kilometres of cycleway to the town centre network. We are focusing on the skills of the future by bringing a new science and technology training facility into the heart of our town centre, and after several years of absence, we are delighted that Marks & Spencer is now back.

If it is the intention of the Bill to follow up the plans it implores local councils to make with funding, planning changes and powers that will enable them to happen, it will not be a bad thing. I would be grateful if the Minister could shed any further light on the mechanism for incorporating these high street improvement plans into local plans.

We all know that our citizens want to see thriving community hubs in their town centres. If my party is given the opportunity to serve in government after the next general election, our six pledges announced yesterday will make an immediate start on supporting councils to do what they need to do. We will create the necessary economic stability by modernising the business rates system so that it works equally for sole traders and small businesses as it does for huge corporates.

We will crack down on anti-social behaviour with real action on shoplifting and town centre patrols, so that people and shopworkers feel safe and are safe. We will have a blitz on planning powers, working with local government to ensure that planning helps the builders not the blockers.

There will also be new powers for mayors so they can get on with the job of regenerating our communities after 14 years of not just stagnation but going backwards. But that is for the future, whether July, September, October or whenever the Government let the country decide. In the meantime, let us hope that the Bill will help our high streets a little while we wait for the change our residents want to see.