My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I will come to the point about Amazon, and not just in relation to business rates; corporation tax is also an issue.
Let me examine the flagship Government policy to tackle the problems facing our high streets—the much talked about Portas pilots. I was an initial supporter of the Portas review and I thought that the pilots were a good idea, but that was before the previous Minister responsible for high streets, who is now the Minister without Portfolio, turned what should have been a serious policy exercise into a farcical circus. Further help was on hand from Optomen Television, which managed to hijack a Government policy and turn it into a reality TV series.
I should like at this point to praise the current Minister responsible for high streets for distancing himself from the antics of his predecessor. He has had the good sense to change the ridiculously titled Future High Street X-Fund to something that is more appropriate to public policy, instead of trying to ape Peter Kay’s last spoof reality TV show. The High Street Renewal Fund sounds much more dignified, but the damage has been done.
It is a year this Sunday since the first wave of Portas pilots was announced. The retail grade magazine, The Grocer, reports that an “emerging findings” report was supposed to be published this April, but has now been shelved. People close to the situation are quoted as saying that there have been
“teething problems including concerns over corporate governance.”
They go on to say that
“having a formal audit-style report may not have been worth the paper it was written on.”
When will the Government’s “emerging findings” report be published, and when will the Government respond to Mary Portas’s recommendations?
Ministers called the Portas pilots the
“vanguard of a high street revolution”.
However, they have been not so much a revolution as a revelation—the revelation that we need substance, not just public relations, to deliver real change.