Thank you, Sir Charles. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am grateful for the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South on this issue, and I am pleased to speak in the Committee on this important Bill.

As my hon. Friend laid out, the Bill will ensure that local authorities effectively use their powers to support high streets in their areas to perform well, and to drive improvements where that is not the case. This will be a valuable tool in enabling us to meet our ambition of creating thriving high streets and town centres. I am sure it will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend that I support all the amendments he has tabled. They are largely technical in nature, but they are important to ensure that the Bill has its intended effect of strengthening high streets across the country.

Clause 1 introduces a new duty on local authorities to designate high streets in their area, meaning that local authorities will need to carefully consider and identify streets of specific economic, social and cultural importance in their area that may require particular attention to ensure that they are performing well.

Amendments 1 and 3 to 8 will ensure that local authorities are able to designate a network of streets in their area, as well as a single street or part of a street, as a high street for the purposes of the Bill. That will ensure that high streets made up of a crossroads or a flow of streets are not overlooked or misrepresented. While technical in nature, the amendments are important to the Bill’s effectiveness and reflective of how people view their high street. They will mean that streets such as Nottingham Road, between Loughborough town centre and the station, could be brought into scope. In my Constituency, they will mean that the High Street in Redcar can also include Station Road and Queen Street.

Amendment 2 will remove the Bill’s upper limit on the number of high streets that a local authority can designate, which is currently set at three. Under the amendment, each local authority will be required to designate at least one high street in their area. Although the Government are clear that designations should be focused on those high streets that would benefit the most from an improvement plan, we recognise that many local authorities will have a large number of high streets in their area and it would be inappropriate for us to prevent them from designating more high streets if they wish to.

The change will mean that in Bury they could also choose Ramsbottom; in Dudley they could choose Sedgley; in Loughborough they could choose Shepshed; in Leigh they could choose Atherton or Golborne; in Copeland they could choose Whitehaven or Millom; and in Milton Keynes they could choose Olney or Newport Pagnell. We have also heard about Erdington in the constituency of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. In the great city of Stoke-on-Trent, the council would be able to choose Hanley as well as other town centres in Burslem and, of course, Longton in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South.

The Government have committed to funding the cost of up to three designations per local authority. The Bill will allow local authorities to designate further high streets on a voluntary basis. However, there is no expectation that local authorities should do so and they will need to fund the costs of designating and developing improvement plans for any high streets beyond three.

Finally on clause 1, amendments 9 and 10 will clarify the meaning of “designation day” in the Bill. If the clause is not commenced on the same day for every local authority, the Bill requires local authorities to maintain the stipulated number of high street designations on designation day and at all times afterwards. Designation day will be six months after the relevant section of the Bill comes into force, which may be different for different local authorities as the Secretary of State may commence the clause on different days for different purposes or areas. This will ensure that there is flexibility around the commencement of the provisions in case that is needed.

Clause 2 sets out the requirement, content and process by which local authorities must prepare and publish an improvement plan for any street that has been designated as a high street. An improvement plan should include information about the condition of the street and its importance to the local economy, as well as proposals for the preservation and enhancement of the street. It must be reviewed every five years.

Amendments 11 to 16 will ensure that the provisions in clause 2 apply to a network of streets, as well as to a single street, and amendment 17 will also apply to the clause. Currently, the Bill requires local authorities to review improvement plans once within each five-year period, beginning with the day the final version of the plan is published. It also allows local authorities to vary a designation; this is separate from the requirement to review designations and may include expanding or reducing the area of a designated high street. However, if a local authority varies a designation, there is currently no requirement to review the improvement plan associated with it, which means there could be a considerable period between the designation being varied and a plan being reviewed. To ensure that improvement plans remain relevant and meaningful documents without placing over- onerous requirements on local authorities, amendment 17 requires local authorities to review improvement plans at least once in every five-year period.

Clause 3 will create a duty on local authorities to have regard to the relevant improvement plan when exercising planning functions that may affect a designated high street in their area. This duty will support the already strong protections for mixed-use high streets through the planning system, complementing the tools already available to local authorities. Amendments 18 to 22 will ensure that the provisions apply to a network of streets, as well as to a single street, as is the case for clauses 1 and 2.

Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations for the purposes of clauses 1 to 3, and sets out the procedure by which such regulations should be made. Clause 5 provides definitions for words and phrases in the Bill, and clause 6 sets out the Bill’s territorial extent, commencement and short title.

Overall, the Bill will ensure that local authorities effectively support high streets in their area. Ensuring that everyone has access to a high street they are proud of is a key priority for this Government, so we are happy to support the Bill, which will sit alongside our other interventions on high streets, such as the long-term plan for towns and the high streets task force.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South on introducing the Bill. It was his idea because of his drive to ensure that high streets in his constituency, such as in Longton, are improved for the benefit of their communities. He could not be a better champion for his constituents. The Bill is testament to that and to his efforts to improve high streets across the country. I am grateful to him, and I reiterate the Government’s full support for the Bill.