Thank you for the welcome opportunity to contribute to this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also welcome the Opposition using their time to discuss these ideas, although obviously I do not agree with a number of things in their motion.
As many Members on both sides of the House have said, the fundamental point is that the high street and the retail sector are changing. Things are being done differently. We have to recognise that that is not something that we in this place can, or should control to the extent suggested by some during the debate. The market is ultimately a market of people. It is a market of our electorate. It is our children, parents, friends and next-door neighbours. When we depersonalise these discussions, suggesting that things are being done to businesses, we miss the point that fundamental changes are taking place on the high street.
Every single job loss is a tragedy. I understand the concerns about, and the challenges created by, people having to do things that they were not previously required to do. Ultimately, however, we have to recognise that big trends and big changes are taking place. Ten years ago, 2% of our purchases were online; that figure is now 18% and it is only going to get bigger. As I said when the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) kindly allowed me to intervene on her, although challenges are created by jobs lost as a result of changes to the high street, many jobs are being created in other industries.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). He is a doughty campaigner and he made his point loudly and clearly, but there was an inherent, slight conservatism—he will not like me saying that—to some of his comments. I understand his point about automation, but so far it has created many more jobs than it has caused to be lost. I accept that his principles are valid and commend him for them—he said that he does not use the automated checkout—but if we were to resolutely adopt them, some would argue that we should not have come here by tube today or by train last week because they put people who kept horses 300 years ago out of business.
I do not seek to take the argument to the extreme, but the point is that we cannot stop progress. It is the responsibility of places such as this to discuss how we make sure that our constituencies are safeguarded to the best possible extent, but we must also recognise that there are trends happening that we should not stop or want to stop, because this is about how people want to live their lives, shop and interact with their local community, which is more important than we may think.
Like a number of Members who have spoken, I have a retail background. My father, just like the Secretary of State’s father, was a milkman. I spent most of my teenage years helping my parents on that milk round, often doing more early mornings than I particularly wanted as a 15 and 16-year-old. I remember the town centre in my part of the world in Chesterfield when I was growing up. I delivered to shops such as Radio Rentals, which is no longer there because we no longer rent radios or need to do so. High streets have got to change. They have always developed. There is always a requirement to be careful about it, but we have to accept that change is inevitable.
That said, we also have to accept that we have to be cognisant of certain things. I completely agree with the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston about banks. I formerly worked in a bank. I understand their issues about making branches work, but they are adopting a short-sighted and wrong strategy regarding the removal of banking facilities from vital parts of the country. I have never understood why banks do not come together and share space so that everybody still has that vital link, with a desk for Santander and another for Barclays and any other bank that wants to join. We cannot simply channel everything through the post office, because that ends up with the ridiculous situation whereby it is always massively busy with far too few people to physically man it. We have discussed similar problems elsewhere on the high street as a result of an insufficient number of people.
I commend the Government’s work, particularly on town teams. I have some great town teams in my part of the world. Eckington town team spends an incredible amount of time organising events at Christmas and over summer to bring people into Eckington, where my office is located, and to encourage them to help and to see their local town centre and local village centre. Clay Cross town centre is doing the same thing. Clay Cross is the birthplace of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner), who is not in his seat. The area is now represented by a Conservative MP—[Interruption.] I had to get that one in. The town team has introduced initiatives such as “Clay Cross on the beach”. I would never have thought—and I am sure the hon. Gentleman
would never have thought—that on a bank holiday weekend a load of sand would be put in the middle of Clay Cross, to encourage people to come. Such initiatives will make people choose that destination and show them the opportunities provided by their towns, including the shops and other possibilities. We in this place have to recognise that great work is going on elsewhere.
I do not want to suggest that there are no challenges. Local authorities in particular have a responsibility to do more. The local authority in my part of the world is completely shirking its responsibility to regenerate our town centre. A number of discussions are taking place, particularly in Dronfield. The town council is doing lots, and businesses want to do lots, but the district council is doing almost nothing and it should be called out for that.
There are challenges and difficulties, but we have to recognise that change is going to happen. We need to guide people through that, but we should not be afraid of those changes. The high street is going to change. It has always changed and it will change in the future.