Future of Town Centres and High Streets

I congratulate the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and the Backbench Business Committee on their work in securing this interesting debate. Given the time available, I shall deal with just two or three issues, in particular what can be done generally. VAT is a big issue and Members have already talked about how we could improve business rates. We should consider how we can do more to encourage the private sector to invest in town centres and high streets, by being proactive with councils and in the local community. We also need to look at some of the laws and regulations in terms of what could be done better to streamline compulsory purchase and to promote fairer competition between small and large retailers. Although supermarkets get a lot of criticism, they provide many jobs, as the likes of Morrisons, Asda and Tesco do in my constituency. Indeed, Tesco is about to open a new superstore and we also have a major distribution centre. In Widnes, those companies are all in the town centre and add to it, although there is an impact on some other shops. The situation is different in Runcorn.