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We have created new headlands with European money, especially the tower headland, and we have had major new art exhibits such as the Comedy Carpet, which celebrates the theatrical and showbiz history of Blackpool. We have the Grundy art gallery and the Carnegie library, which have fantastic local history collections, including the Cyril Critchlow collection of playbills. That was part of a determined programme of physical and cultural renewal. Those Members who have not recently been to see how the winter gardens have been restored to splendour or the major renewals to the tower are welcome to do so.

Throughout the process, the local authority and local bodies have played a crucial role in the vigorous pursuit of collaboration with the Victoria and Albert museum and the exchange of ideas and initiatives with York, and they have contributed significantly to the injection of cultural elements into the regeneration programme. For example, FYCreatives, funded with money from the Government’s local enterprise growth initiative, has design and art, and gallery space. There are initiatives in the centre of the town and I pay tribute to council officers and to the cabinet member for tourism, Graham Cain, and the leader of the council, Simon Blackburn. He, in particular, has put the heritage issue on the front foot.

The Civic Trust has been a major force for highlighting heritage. We have had incredible community support for oral history, and there is a marvellous war memorial in the town, supported by the Royal British Legion and the Comrades Club. There is a range of different things, but we depend on good bids being made to unlock the available funds. That is the reason, in crude terms, why we have failed to draw funds into Blackpool. Others have pointed out the same thing. The good work done in the community includes Wordpool, a literary festival that reaches out as an alternative for children and young people, the Fylde coast dance initiative, and in the next couple of weeks the Showzam project in the centre of the town—a display of circus, magic and new variety—as well as the illuminations themselves. All those things are magnets to bring people into the town, but we need support to succeed, and to make a reality of Blackpool’s heritage plans, including the excellent suggestion for a new museum of popular culture and the seaside, which has gone to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Places such as Blackpool do not need a handout; they need a leg up, from Arts Council England, from Departments, in recognition of the scale of the cuts, and from the Minister, whom we need to fight our corner.

3.21 pm

Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing the debate. I note what the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) said, and unfortunately much of the debate portrays the issue as a battle between London and the regions. In reality, there are two aspects of the matter to take into account when decisions are taken. First, the arts and the creative industries are part and parcel of people’s quality of life; secondly, there is the question of promoting growth and enterprise. The simple fact is that 63% of people who come to this

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country as tourists come to London first, so it is only right for there to be investment in London, to encourage growth and prosperity.

3.22 pm

Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.

3.45 pm

On resuming—

Bob Blackman: As I was saying before the Divisions, the key to economic growth is investment. Given that, what has been said about investment in London must be corrected. In “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital”, the Mayor of London clearly states that the per capita spending in London for arts lottery funding in 2012-13 was £17.26, not the £86.40 that has been cited. We must have the correct facts and figures, so I look to the inquiry by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee to ensure that we have the right figures before we move forward. The subsidy in London is the lowest of any part of the country, and that needs to be understood.

I used to serve on the London assembly as deputy chairman of the Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee. In 2007, I commissioned a report on the state of theatres in London, and I am told that it is still the definitive report on the requirement for funding of theatres to encourage the creative industries in London and the creative culture that promotes so much of London’s tourism. Actually, very little spending is needed to enable many of London’s theatres to prosper, grow and bring in private sector funding. That needs to be addressed.

David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con): Even if the Mayor of London’s figure is right—personally, I do not think that it is, so I too look forward to the Select Committee’s report—the funding level in London is four to five times more than that in the English regions. How can that possibly be defended?

Martin Caton (in the Chair): Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, I remind Members that we need to keep our contributions down to something like three minutes and interventions will probably prevent us from doing that.

Bob Blackman: Thank you, Mr Caton.

In answer to my hon. Friend, the key is driving economic growth. The reality is that the creative industries in London account for one in 12 jobs in the UK and one in eight jobs in London. The point is that if we invest in London, we will create faster economic growth for the long-term benefit of the whole economy. The creative industries in this country are worth £71.4 billion, which is a huge amount of money. If we want to see investment, it must take place in that sector.

The Communities and Local Government Committee, on which I sit, is conducting an inquiry at the moment on devolution of funding, not only to London but to other cities and regions. With devolution comes responsibility, and I take the strong view that when the Arts Council or any other grant-awarding body is giving out money to invest in the creative industries—the arts, the culture or any other creative area—it should be done hand in hand with matched funding from local

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authorities, to ensure that we maximise the amount of money available. We talk about devolution to local authorities and beyond; with devolution comes the responsibility to invest in arts and culture, and not to say, “We’ll decimate the arts and culture, and we’ll invest in other areas.”

I think we have to be clear that this should not end up as a battle between London and the regions. The opportunity is there to invest in the creative industries in both London and the regions. We have to ensure that the facts and figures quoted by all hon. Members are correct.

3.50 pm

Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton.

A remarkable milestone in the cultural heritage of my Stockton North constituency will be reached this August, when Billingham international folklore festival marks its 50th anniversary. The festival started with an Irish dance troupe dancing in the town hall, run by the late Phil Conroy, and we now have an internationally renowned event with a rich blend of the traditional and the contemporary. I hope that hon. Members from all parties accept my invitation to join us between 8 and 16 August, but if they cannot, they can instead come to Stockton between 31 July and 3 August, when Stockton international riverside festival takes place, showcasing the best in small and large-scale street theatre.

I do not apologise for making a pitch for those two events, which with other arts groups, including our fabulous ARC centre and Tees Music Alliance, have taken the widest range of cultural experiences to the widest possible audience. Yes, we have had tremendous success in arts and culture. The last time I had a debate in this Chamber, the Minister mentioned the richness he had heard about. Of course, much more could have been done in the north-east if the region had a fair share of the massive pot that is available for arts and culture.

The north-east is more typically associated with shipbuilding and manufacturing than with the arts, but the people in the north-east have a real passion for the arts. Since the late 1990s, the region has had budding significance in the creative industries, spurred by the finances made available under Labour and the regional development agency, as well as from the European Union and national lottery funding. A clever combination of investment and foresight has resulted in the north-east, one of Britain’s poorest and most deprived areas on many measures, establishing some of the finest creative arts infrastructure in the country. For instance, we not only boast international attractions, such as the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the Sage Gateshead concert hall, but national and regional establishments, such as ARC in Stockton and the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.

Despite all that, ease of access to the arts remains far from fair for the regions. Some two thirds of the population live beyond the reach of the productions and collections of the so-called national cultural organisations, and three quarters of decisions on arts funding are taken centrally rather than regionally—a proportion that continues to climb. There is another aspect to this: the vast majority of money spent on the lottery tends to be spent in poorer areas, but they do not get their return

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from the national lottery. They have a higher proportion of spend and, as a bare minimum, they should be getting a return on that investment.

I shall talk in the few seconds I have left about arts for ordinary people. The ARC in Stockton is a multipurpose cultural venue with hundreds of events a year. In a single year, it hosted 230 professional performances and 80 community performances, engaging more than 110,000 visitors. A hundred artists are employed to provide 1,000 creative learning opportunities, enjoyed by more than 14,000 children, young people, adults and older people. That is what the arts are about—not just fancy museums and opera houses in London. but what is actually happening out in the regions. It is time that we had a fairer share of the money that is available.

3.53 pm

Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) in the debate. Let me quickly put a word for opera houses in London, of which I am very fond.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on the way he introduced this well attended debate, which has struck a chord with hon. Members from all parties. It is striking that every hon. Member who has taken part has made the good point, which I endorse, that this debate should not be about London versus the regions.

I was not surprised by the findings of the report, “Rebalancing our Cultural Capital”. It is right and proper that particular funding is provided to important institutions of national and international standing and it is logical that those will be located in the capital, but that point only goes so far. I was genuinely surprised by the extent of the funding and the ratio of £69 per head spent on the arts from all sources in London, compared to the £4.60 for the rest of the country, a ratio of 15:1, or 14:1, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) said.

I welcome the Select Committee inquiry. If these figures are contested by the Mayor of London or the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), or whoever, it is right that the facts are established, but I suspect that this report will not be far off the mark. Its authors have reflected carefully on the implications of their finding and have come up with a number of modest, sensible, workmanlike proposals. I hope that the Minister agrees at least to consider them and see if they are workable. The report recommends that, of the different funding streams administered by the Arts Council—the money from the Department, the Arts Council and the national lottery—the national lottery segment is hypothecated, at least in part, to a specific fund dedicated to the non-London part of England; in other words, to regional arts.

When one takes into account the private sector funding, 82% of which is spent in London, with the remaining 18% spent in the rest of the country, the thrust of the expenditure pattern is all too clear. The proposal in the report is modest and is all the more justified when we look at who is contributing into the lottery. Some 56% of households in the north-east region play the lottery. In London, the region with the lowest participation in

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percentage terms, 32% of households play the lottery. So it is possible to win the lottery without playing it: all you have to do is move to London. If the figures in the report are right, it is fair to find some way of altering the balance.

Let me make a plea for the north-east. We were able to get the Sage, one of the most wonderful concert halls—similar to the symphony hall that the people of Birmingham have—which is acoustically accurate and designed for the performance of great music, but it costs money to bring orchestras of worldwide distinction to venues of this kind and to the north-east of England. If we could have a little fund that would make up the difference between the amount of money that one can reasonably get from the sale of tickets and the cost of providing the orchestral concerts, that would go an enormous way to bringing the Sage building back to its original intended purpose and would boost the arts in the north-east of England.

3.58 pm

Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown). He has laid down a powerful challenge, because this debate, and therefore its conclusions, falters on the uncertainty and ambiguity of the figures in two respects. He has made the point about the lottery, but when the claimed discrepancy between London and the rest of the country is interrogated, it does not take account of the postcode distribution of those figures. A cultural institution based in London but doing a lot of performance and so forth outside it will still count against the London tally.

I say to the Minister that there is a pressing need for figures that Members can have faith and confidence in. That would begin to deal with this sense that London is being set against the rest of country, when in fact its great cultural institutions are interdependent with those in other parts of the country.

I feel very proud of the previous Government, of which I was a member, for many reasons. One is the funding of regional arts and the restoration of funding for regional museums.

My second point, which the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) also made—unfortunately, he is not in his place—is that the figures are misleading. He has a rural constituency and therefore has an interest from that perspective. The regional nature of the figures means that the allocation to rural areas is subsumed in an overall regional average that is heavily dominated by cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and Leeds.

Today’s debate, for which I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), is a welcome and important starting point, but we need an undertaking from the Minister that he will improve the quality of the data. To coin Jennie Lee’s phrase, the role of an arts Minister in relation to the arts community is money, policy and silence, but I think it should be money, policy and silence—but better figures.

Martin Caton (in the Chair): I call Kerry McCarthy, but I have to ask her to resume her seat by five minutes past 4 so that the wind-ups can begin.

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4.1 pm

Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this debate. It is a great pleasure to follow not one but two former Labour Secretaries of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friends the Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell). It is very good that they have turned up to speak.

I will not spend a lot of time paying tribute to Bristol’s arts and cultural scene and creative industries, which are well known. Bristol has everything from the natural history unit to Aardman. We had the “Gromit Unleashed” exhibition, if I can call it that, in the city last year. There were some 80 Gromits dotted around the city centre, and more than 1 million visitors came. People came from Japan to take pictures of themselves with the Gromits, which shows that Bristol does not always do things in the established way. There is a big counter-cultural scene in Bristol, which for the most part operates outside the realm of Arts Council funding and is probably happy doing so. The Banksys of this world, for example, have no need for anyone’s money except their own these days.

As we have heard, arts in the regions have been disproportionately affected by cuts to arts and culture. The Bristol Old Vic’s artistic director Tom Morris described it as a “triple whammy” of national cuts, local cuts and the greater difficulties that places outside London have in getting philanthropic funding. We know from research published by the shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that the most deprived local authorities have suffered a disproportionately large share of funding cuts, which has a knock-on effect.

Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a similar situation in many constituencies? In Bolton, the crescent building, which has a museum, a library and an art gallery, has had to make 25 people redundant and sell 36 pieces of art so it can survive.

Kerry McCarthy: Cuts have a cumulative impact. Not just the Arts Council cuts but other cuts are having a real impact. The artistic director of the Nottingham Playhouse has said that cuts will particularly affect the theatre’s ability to commission new plays. He concluded that cuts are

“about centralisation....loss of identity and undermining of the regional voice”.

In the limited time that I have left, I will focus on the fact that not all parts of Bristol benefit evenly from Arts Council funding. We have talked about the discrepancy between London and the regions, but there is a discrepancy even within Bristol. None of the 15 national portfolio arts organisations in Bristol, which share the £4.3 million grant in aid that goes to the city, are based in my constituency of Bristol East. Of the 79 projects in Bristol supported by the Arts Council through its national lottery-funded grants for the arts, only four are based in Bristol East. That is partly because the city centre is home to historical and cultural buildings and activities, but we need to consider how we can use arts funding to take things out to the communities, and to bring the communities into the city centre, too. There is a divide,

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and many people do not feel that they share in the artistic spoils of Bristol in the way they should. I have been approached by the Arts Council’s south-west office on precisely that issue. We met a couple of weeks ago, and I am reassured that the Arts Council is committed to ensuring that Bristol’s imbalance is addressed.

4.5 pm

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this very important debate, which has been attended by 16 Labour Members.

One of the pleasures of holding the arts portfolio is being reminded of the excellent quality of the arts across the country. My right hon. Friends the Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) have all attested to that fact. Nobody can doubt the quality of regional arts, the audience for regional arts or the talent that comes from regional arts, so we need to ask why there is such a funding disparity.

Much has been made of the independent report “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital”, which found that Londoners get nearly £70 a head and the rest of the country gets £4.60 a head, a ratio of 14:1. The report’s figures do not include the spend on the Cultural Olympiad or the millennium dome, but they have been questioned this afternoon. Obviously one would expect more money to be spent on national institutions, which tend to be in capital cities. The National Gallery is bound to cost the taxpayer more than the Walker art gallery. Equally, it is true that some of the work undertaken by the national institutions directly benefits the regions, such as the National Theatre’s streaming of “Richard II” to cinemas across the country and the British Museum’s portable antiquities scheme. Given the questions, though, it is disappointing that, three months down the track, we have not had a clear analysis from Arts Council England showing the proportion of the benefits of spending that falls in London and the proportion that falls elsewhere, which would inform the discussion.

Even on the analysis that Arts Council England has provided, the picture shows a serious problem. Over the five years between 2010 and 2015, some £2 billion of public money will be spent on cultural institutions in London, excluding the British Library. The direct spend of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is £447 million, of which 90% is in London. In a series of parliamentary answers to me, the Minister has not justified the rationale for that support. It is an accident of history that the Liverpool museums and the Geffrye museum are nationally supported while the Laing art gallery in Newcastle and the Dulwich picture gallery are not. When people learn that Arts Council England supports 77 performing arts organisations in London but only seven in the north-east, it is clear that the imbalance is not just about a handful of elite institutions.

Arts Council England says that grant in aid funding is £22 a head in London and £8 a head elsewhere. As hon. Members have said, how can it be right that people

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in the east midlands and the east of England get only a fifth of what Londoners get and that the east midlands, a region of 6 million people, has no major partner museum? The lottery spend under Arts Council England’s control tells a similar story: £12 per person in London compared with £2.99 per person in the west midlands and £2.78 per person in the north-west—in other words, less than a quarter.

Arts Council England seems to think that it is some sort of triumph that just 31% of the lottery funding that it distributes was awarded to London’s institutions. That seems less commendable when one discovers that London accounts for only 10% of lottery ticket sales, whereas people in the north-east get 3.6% of the spend but pay for 7.6% of lottery tickets. The authors of “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital” suggest that the rebalancing should begin with the lottery money. We need a proper audit of what is going on, taking account of DCMS support, Arts Council England grants, Arts Council England-distributed lottery funding and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

It is notable that HLF’s distribution matches the population far more closely than Arts Council England-distributed lottery funding. London, with 15% of the population, gets 19% of the spend. The east of England, with 11% of the population, gets 10% of the spend. Yorkshire and Humber’s 10% of the population is perfectly matched with 10% of the spend. That proves that it can be done and suggests that there is a relationship with the institutional structures of the organisation. The Heritage Lottery Fund has a far more rooted, regional approach to decision making.

One thing I find worrying is this statement in the Arts Council briefing:

“The Arts Council cannot make up the shortfall and we want to work with local authorities who continue to value and invest in arts and culture”.

At first blush that seems reasonable, but then one takes account of the disparate and unfair funding settlements meted out by the Government to local authorities. Liverpool and Hackney, which are among the 10 most deprived local authorities, are seeing 27% reductions in spending power, while local authorities in Surrey, which has some of the 10 least deprived, are seeing 1% increases in spending power. In the real world, cash does not equate to commitment, whereas on the Arts Council model, despite having seven museums, a major orchestra and being the home of the Beatles and Daniel Defoe, Liverpool’s funding might fall and Surrey would become the most cultivated county in England.

Furthermore, the Arts Council proposed to take local authority investment into account in Manchester and Middlesbrough, but not in Kensington and Chelsea, which puts no money into the V and A, or in Westminster, home to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, which has just axed its entire arts budget, despite all the cultural and economic benefits that flow to local communities from being home to those magnificent institutions.

Normally, public subsidy goes where the market fails, but that cannot be said for the arts. London has the largest population of the well-heeled middle classes, the most tourists and the most philanthropists. I am delighted that the Minister, in partnership with the Wolfson Foundation, has spread money across the regions, and I am not cynical enough to think that the Bowes Museum

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in my constituency has had a particularly large grant because it is the seat of the shadow Minister—it is obviously because it has the best collection of European paintings between London and Edinburgh—but will the £4 million make up for the discrepancy in the philanthropic spend per head? I doubt it. In London, the spend per head was nearly £60, but in the midlands it was only £1.83.

I end with one simple question for the Minister. He cannot continue to hide behind the Arts Council’s skirts. He has totally failed to persuade the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government of the need to take account of the value of the arts in local authority settlements. Can the Minister persuade the Arts Council to take radical steps to reverse that trend? If he does not, we will see an existential crisis outside the M25. In Somerset, the Brewhouse closed; in Darlington, the arts centre closed; and, in Richmond, the Georgian theatre is at risk. The losses will be felt not only now, but for many years ahead as young people across the country lose the stimulation and opportunities provided by the arts.

4.13 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey): I am grateful for the chance to respond to this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing it. It was apposite that during the debate, an e-mail arrived in my inbox from Sheffield Theatres inviting me to the premiere of “The Full Monty” at the Noel Coward theatre on 25 February. “The Full Monty” began in Sheffield a year ago and has since successfully toured what we call “the regions”—that is, the rest of the country outside of London. That is a good example of how theatres outside London continue to produce high-quality productions for the enjoyment of people living outside London.

I think Members in all parts of the House can agree that we have had a good debate. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) pointed out that the last time we had a debate on the regional arts, hon. Members could not resist telling the House about the thriving arts organisations in their constituencies. The paradox in a debate such as this, when the message is that the arts and the arts outside London need more money, is that most of the messages we hear are about thriving arts communities outside London.

Alex Cunningham: It could be better.

Mr Vaizey: Exactly. That is the theme: arts funding is doing very well, but it could be better. We have had some fantastic contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) talked about north Cornwall museums benefiting from the support of the National Maritime Museum. Two former Secretaries of State—the right hon. Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell)—spoke in the debate. The right hon. Lady said that the figures perhaps did not give the full picture of how London and the regions are interdependent. The right hon. Gentleman asked the current Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

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to speak to local government. I am sure he will be pleased to know that my right hon. Friend will speak to the Local Government Association, and she will, no doubt, make it plain how important it is that local authorities continue to support the arts.

We have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) talk about Aldeburgh, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) talk about the Plymouth theatre and my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talk about the power of art to transform political debate. The hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) did not mention the £3 million that is coming to Blackpool and Wyre from the Arts Council’s creative people and places fund. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) talked about the importance of the arts and the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), perhaps the greatest culture Minister we never had, talked about the Sage Gateshead. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who won the seat that I contested in 1997—I turned a 5,000 Labour majority into a 17,000 Labour majority—does not need to tell me about the thriving arts scene in Bristol.

We can trade statistics back and forth, but it is my understanding that 70% of lottery funding goes outside London or to projects that benefit the whole nation. That percentage has increased from 60% before the coalition came into power. It is important to note that the first act of the coalition was to increase the proportion of lottery funding going each to the arts and to heritage from 16% to 20%.

Paul Blomfield: Simply to correct the Minister on his numbers, in 2009-10—the last year of the previous Government—the lottery spend outside London was 76.3%. It has fallen in 2012-13 to 68.4%.

Mr Vaizey: My briefing from the Arts Council says the opposite: that it is 70% now and was on average 60% under the previous Government. We can trade statistics, but lottery funding has increased and additional funds are available: £45 million for the strategic touring programme, which helps organisations tour outside of London; £37 million in the creative people and places fund, which was specifically set up by the Arts Council to support the arts where they are not well represented in certain regions; and £15 million to support 6,500 apprenticeship places, many of which will be outside London. There is also the £171 million that I secured with the Secretary of State for Education for music hubs. For 2015-16 alone, the Arts Council will have something like £570 million to invest in the arts up and down the country.

It is important, however, to understand why in the pure statistics it looks like London is getting a disproportionate share of the funding. The national museums are based in London, but the Victoria and Albert Museum is opening a multimillion pound extension in Dundee and it works with Sheffield galleries, as I know from my visits. The British Museum only this week sent me a wonderful publication detailing all the work it does across the country with other organisations. Plus Tate works with 26 contemporary art museums in the UK. The Science Museum has homes in York, Bradford and Manchester. The Royal Armouries is

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based in Leeds. The Imperial War Museum has bases in Duxford and Salford, as well as in London. There are also organisations that tour, such as the English National Ballet. I spoke to the director-designate of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, about his ambitious plans to support theatre and produce productions outside London and bring them into the National Theatre. That will no doubt be helped by the Chancellor’s generous decision to create a tax break for theatre specifically to support productions outside London.

The list goes on and I could go on and on, but I want to list some of the places that I have visited as culture Minister. I went to Durham to view the Lindisfarne gospels and saw the huge impact the exhibition had on the city. I have visited the Turner Contemporary, which has already welcomed 1 million visitors, the Hepworth Wakefield, Nottingham Contemporary, Sage Gateshead and Bristol Old Vic, which is one of the foremost advocates of arts policy in the country.

David Mowat: I thank the Minister for giving way. I am listening hard to his catalogue of stuff going on in the regions. Based on that, is it his position that the current balance of spending per head between London and the regions is about right and that the report and its recommendations for rebalancing are not a useful contribution?

Mr Vaizey: I was going to go on to mention the Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth, Thinktank, which is the Birmingham science museum, Liverpool, which has been European capital of culture and contains one of our national museums, the Manchester international festival, Manchester’s plans for a new arts centre called HOME, Aldeburgh, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal, Opera North, the Lowry and the Bowes museum. It is no coincidence that the shadow culture spokesperson holds the Bishop Auckland seat given the huge philanthropic act of Jonathan Ruffer, who saved the Zurbarán paintings and opened up Auckland castle, which I visited a few months ago.

Mr Bradshaw: Rather than continue reading out a lengthy list of excellent regional arts organisations, perhaps the Minister could answer the question posed by the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) and reassure us that when the Secretary of State goes to talk to the Local Government Association, she will come armed with good practice examples of where local government supports the arts and cultural community in the way that so many have outlined in today’s debate.

Mr Vaizey: It is important that the right hon. Gentleman has stopped me in my tracks, because I could go on until the end of the day about the superb regional arts centres found outside London. I could talk about the national impact of Cultural Olympiad or about world war one. I think the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) was well answered. We are doing brilliantly, but could always do

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better. That is what Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of Arts Council England, said. He is confident that funding is available for our great arts organisations outside of the capital and that organisations in the capital work closely with those outside. He has, however, said “could do better” and “judge us in two years’ time,” which is right. To hon. Members who feel concerned, their message has been heard.

Yasmin Qureshi: I honestly do not mean to be facetious, but when the Minister has discussions with the chair of Arts Council England and other Ministers, will he please ask that the museum, library and art gallery on Le Mans crescent in Bolton is given extra funding, so that it does not have to sell any more artwork to survive?

Mr Vaizey: The hon. Lady is not being facetious in the slightest, but it is important to understand that Arts Council England is based on the arm’s length principle. The shadow culture Minister said that I cannot hide behind the Arts Council’s skirts, but what is her position? Will there be a fundamental change of policy by the Labour party? There have been rumours that Labour would cancel all funding for the big five, the Royal Opera House and the Royal Shakespeare Company and redistribute that money around the regions. Is that what Labour would do? It is all right to moan, but she really must come up with an alternative policy. Is it her position to direct Arts Council funding or to direct funding per head in the regions? What is the Labour party’s position? It is about to be explained.

Mr Nicholas Brown: It is. The Labour party’s position is most certainly not as set out by the Minister. I am enjoying his speech, but it is unfair to the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) not to give him the direct answer that he was hoping for.

Mr Vaizey: I feel that I did give him a direct answer. I explained that the chair of Arts Council England had said that things were going well, but could always do better, that the message has been heard loud and clear and that judgment should be made in two years’ time.

I will not support the recommendation from Patrick Diamond, the former adviser to the previous Labour Prime Minister, to close the British Museum and move it outside London, probably costing several billion pounds. I will also not support Labour’s proposals to stop funding the big five. [Interruption.] The shadow culture spokesperson is going to rule that out.

Helen Goodman: I certainly am going rule out that we are going to end all funding to what the Minister calls the “big five”. I have not said it and I do not think it.

Mr Vaizey: That is good to hear. I am glad that that rumour has been put to bed, but I remain in the dark on the hon. Lady’s regional policy. Labour has initiated a second review of the creative industries, so we will wait to hear its conclusions.

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Independent Retail

4.25 pm

Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab): The Waitrose website’s myWaitrose section states:

“A free cup of tea or coffee every day as a myWaitrose member.”

It goes on to say:

“Nothing says ‘welcome’ more than a lovely hot cup of tea or coffee, so let us treat you to a free regular tea or coffee every day! You can enjoy one cup a day—to drink in or takeaway. Simply present your myWaitrose card at the till and you won’t be charged a penny.”

In addition, Waitrose offers a free newspaper to customers who spend more than £5. The myWaitrose offer was drawn to my attention by Mr and Mrs Cairns, who run the village newsagent in Formby, which is near a Waitrose. They sell newspapers—or rather, they used to—but a few months ago people could suddenly get a free paper at Waitrose and no longer needed to visit the other shops in the village.

The impact on the newsagent has been disastrous, with a big drop in trade. Not only are newspaper sales down, but so too is their other trade. Neighbouring shops in the village have also lost out as customers of the newsagent no longer call in. As people drink their free coffee at Waitrose, they no longer buy from the range of independent coffee shops. Instead, they wait in long—sometimes very long—queues after doing their supermarket shopping. A similar point was made to me by a Mr Cant, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford), who also has a Waitrose store near his shop. Colleagues from elsewhere around the country will have similar examples.

The proprietor of Formby Books, Tony Higginson, also tells me about the impact of supermarkets selling books at a much lower price than he can as an independent book shop owner. Speaking of bookshops, it is only fair that I mention Pritchard’s, which has bookshops in Formby and in Crosby. In addition to competition from the supermarkets, the bookshops face competition from online retailers such as Amazon.

We also have a Tesco in Formby, which recently opened a hand car wash which took most of the trade from the car wash on the industrial estate next door. Formby Tyres also operates on that industrial estate. National Tyres and Autocare recently set up nearby and can sell tyres for less than Formby Tyres can buy them. The ability of national chains to buy far more cheaply than small businesses is one of the many challenges facing independent retailers.

David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on obtaining this debate. I cannot help but wonder whether he has taken up Waitrose’s offer.

On a more serious note, he will agree that small independent retailers have been the backbone of the United Kingdom’s high streets for many years and that we certainly need to do more for them. We welcome the 2% cap on rates, but we perhaps need to look at other issues. The hon. Gentleman mentioned major supermarkets; perhaps we need to consider the whole planning structure in the UK.

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Bill Esterson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will come to his points later, but I agree with what he says. I hasten to add that I buy my coffee from local independent coffee shops.

The Local Data Company has reported that some 66% of retail outlets in town centres were independent in 2011. To put that into context, however, I should say that since 1980, the number of butchers has fallen from over 40,000 to around 10,000 and the number of fishmongers has fallen from 10,000 to 2,000. Since 2001, we have seen a 31% rise in the number of large chains and supermarkets.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): In Northern Ireland, there is a system of small business relief based on a net annual value of £15,000; in the UK mainland, the NAV is £12,000. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it might be a good idea for the Government to consider increasing the NAV cap on the mainland, thereby keeping shops open, rather than closing them, and creating employment, rather than unemployment?

Bill Esterson: I will let the Minister answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, but we should be taking the opportunity to look at all sorts of ways of supporting small independent retailers. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s answer.

Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab): Is my hon. Friend aware that in Bristol we have something called the Bristol pound, our own currency? More than 600 local shops and businesses now accept the Bristol pound; people can even pay their bus fares and council tax with it. It is an excellent way of supporting independent businesses and encouraging people to spend their Bristol pounds in independent shops, rather than the big stores. Perhaps Liverpool ought to do the same.

Bill Esterson: Liverpool no doubt should, but perhaps Sefton can do it first—

Kerry McCarthy: Sorry—Merseyside.

Bill Esterson: A Merseyside pound would be an even better idea.

I was aware of the Bristol pound. We need to look at innovative ideas that support small independent retailers and the local economy, and what happens in Bristol is an active example of that.

In addition to the buying power that I described earlier, the large chains have various other advantages, including the ability to buy or rent property in advantageous locations and access to enormous amounts of data on the behaviour of shoppers, enabling them to tune their offer towards what consumers want. Since the 1980s, out-of-town shopping centres have become more numerous. They offer large retailers more space than is available in traditional town centre locations, but retail units in such centres are often beyond the financial reach of small independent shops.

Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—he has been incredibly generous with all the interventions this afternoon. Does he agree that it takes some imagination from town centres to attract small businesses into empty units? In my

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constituency, we have a town team that runs an empty unit scheme, which has helped to fund small businesses to occupy such units. So far, the team has two new businesses in place, with another three coming on stream. Will he join me in welcoming the good work of the town teams up and down the country?

Bill Esterson: I have two town teams in my constituency, in Crosby and in Maghull. In Maghull, the town team and the town council were instrumental in opening pop-up shops in an empty unit, which is a similar approach to that described by the hon. Lady. What she says is important.

E-commerce is up from around 2% of sales in 2007 to around 10% in 2013. Internet shopping offers independent retailers the opportunity to compete on a more level playing field with larger retailers, because the cost of overheads is massively reduced, but recognised brands still have an advantage in the online environment. In addition, footfall in town centres is reduced by internet shopping, meaning that independent retailers with a physical presence see less through traffic and fewer potential customers.

Down the road from Formby is Crosby, where Tesco now has two convenience stores in addition to a medium-sized Sainsbury in the village centre. Plans are being made for a further convenience store in College road in Crosby, near the existing Tesco and next to an existing Co-op. Plans for a further convenience store from a national supermarket chain have caused concern among local shopkeepers.

The National Federation of Retail Newsagents represents 16,000 independent news and convenience stores. The NFRN tells me:

“One of the biggest threats to independent news and convenience retailers has been the rapid growth of the supermarket sector.”

Tesco has more than 1,500 small stores, while Sainsbury has 594, according to The Daily Telegraph. Such stores are close to independent retailers and a third of NFRN members have seen a local or metro-style shop open near them in the last year alone. Often, little consideration is given to the impact on existing retail outlets.

Crosby village centre is very run down, like many town centres and high streets around the country, and the Sainsbury store in the village centre is the biggest attraction for visitors. I am optimistic that in the coming years a master plan for Crosby will be produced, but Sainsbury has to be part of that plan. The village desperately needs a complete overhaul, but this needs to be in partnership with the independent retailers.

The No. 1 issue raised by independent retailers is business rates. One retailer from Crosby told me that small businesses need help with bigger rate relief, as they find their rates crippling. Business rates date from a time when retailers had to have a premises and when land and property values were easy to predict. It is a system from another time, for another time—a time before out-of-town shopping centres, dominant national chains and the internet. That is why so many people are calling for a reform of the system to reflect the reality of retailing and business in general.

Amazon can sell books online and pay no tax on the profits generated in this country, and large retailers can set up shop on low-rated land. Local shops need to be where people will go, which generally means high street

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sites that are often expensive in terms of rent and rates. A first step to be requested is a full revaluation of the rates. Big retailers have many advantages, because of economies of scale, however, so a reform of the rating system is one way in which smaller retailers could be given an advantage to balance their lack of economies of scale.

In the autumn statement, the Government announced business rates support for retailers, and my party is committed to a cut followed by a freeze in business rates. The reality, however, is that small retailers need us all to go further; as the NFRN points out, those are all short-term measures. In some countries, business taxes are collected using a local sales tax. That is only one possible option, although no doubt the Treasury has reasons for rejecting such an approach—it usually does.

How many local shop keepers have good advisers and mentors to help them set up and support them over the years? Who is there to advise independent bookshops on how to make the most of the internet? Where is the support for small shops setting up online trading to help them grow and compete with the big players, despite their not having much cash to invest in a website? It can be done, as I discovered when I visited my constituent Helen Flynn at her shop, Gentle Cosmetics. Helen has both a shop and an internet presence. More retailers could do both, but they need advice and support. National Government have a role to play through the taxation and planning systems. The Government claim that they have made life easier by changes in planning, but whether independent retailers have benefited or high streets have been revived is another matter.

Other issues include parking and bank lending. The out-of-town supermarkets can offer free parking, while many town centres have parking charges. Sefton council offers a free half hour in Crosby and two hours in Formby. Meanwhile, in Maghull, town centre parking is free for half an hour in the privately owned car park in the town centre. In the run-up to Christmas, parking in Sefton’s council-run car parks was free on Thursdays to support late-night opening.

A system of local banks that work closely with their business customers would also help, hence Labour’s proposal for a regional banking system. There is already good practice that could be adopted to address some of the challenges I have mentioned in the debate. In the case of relationship business banking, the Cumberland building society already operates in this way. It is the only building society, so far as I know, to offer a full business banking service.

We face a cost-of-living crisis, and it is no different for independent retailers. Fifty-five per cent. of retailers tell the Association of Convenience Stores that they earn less than the national minimum wage. One of my constituents runs the post offices in Formby and in Crosby, but after paying her staff and her other costs she is left with next to nothing to live on. That story is repeated by many retailers I meet.

The experience of many is that being self-employed is a tough way to try to survive—something I can confirm from personal experience, having run my own business for many years. Government can help by making sure that the economy grows and by recognising the importance of the independent retail sector in our cities, towns and villages. Independent retailers are a key part of our economy and are significant local employers as well.

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Research by the Association of Convenience Stores suggests that 76% of new retail space given planning consent is located outside town centres. Far more planning consents are given to out-of-town developments than to town centre developments.

This debate is about balance. Yes, the big chains are a big part of shopping, and they need to compete with each other, but small, independent retailers are at the heart of our local communities, providing valuable services to local people and an alternative to the standardised approach of the big chains. The issue is about having a level playing field, and about fairness between large and small businesses. If the big chains wipe out the independents, we will all lose as the identity of our communities will suffer. Competition will be reduced if there is no one to challenge the big players.

The question is, who is on the side of the independent retailers? The big chains can and do look after themselves. In Formby, Crosby, Maghull and Aintree, I am supporting the “Shop Local” campaign and encouraging people to support independent retailers. There is room for both large and small retailers. We need both—our town centres and high streets need both, and so do our communities. However, a fair balance between large and small is not going to happen without intervention by Government. The Government say that they want to support our high streets, and, by implication, our local shops. The time has come for them to make sure that their actions speak louder than their words.

4.42 pm

The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon): I congratulate the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing a debate on this important subject. We certainly recognise the value of the whole of our retail sector to our local and national economies. It employs some 3 million people and contributes around £80 billion to gross value added—almost 6% of our economy. Retail is a significant contributor to self-employment and independent shops are themselves often crucibles of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Research by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies discovered that for every £1 spent locally, around 50p to 70p re-circulates back into the local economy. Local shops provide hundreds of thousands of flexible jobs, particularly for young people and those who juggle other commitments such as child care. They are important hubs of social interaction and can provide vital services to their communities. Many operate in the convenience sector, which has seen real growth—there are now nearly 50,000 convenience stores on the UK mainland. The convenience sector is worth some £35 billion in turnover, adding real social and economic value to communities. More than three quarters of shops in the sector are independent, and almost three quarters of owners, interestingly, are the first generation of their family to own and run a business in the UK.

The economy is now growing for the first time since the recession, and the retail sector is contributing enormously to that. Significantly, it is small stores that are driving much of that growth. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that small stores are

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now seeing annual growth of some 8%. Figures released by the British Independent Retailers Association on 31 January show that more than half of independent retailers have had their best average growth since 2010. Nearly two thirds of respondents to BIRA are confident or very confident about the year ahead, and confidence levels are at their highest since 2009.

Our habits as consumers are changing. We are using local shops more—including independents—to top up our supermarket shopping. Independent shops make our high streets, town centres and local shops more diverse and vibrant. Shopping locally has a positive impact on the local economy.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the independent retail sector has faced challenges. It is simultaneously adapting to massive structural challenges driven by changes in consumer lifestyles and preferences, the impact of new and emerging technologies and the constant evolution in technology usage. Modern lifestyles demand a much more flexible and fragmented shopping style that combines physical with online retail, and leisure and convenience shopping. Furthermore, the shift to shopping online is reducing some retailers’ need for large and costly physical stores, as well as creating the need for new and different design roles such as web design. Technology is driving change—tablets and smartphones are making it easier for consumers to buy online and in any location, and new delivery options such as “click and collect” are reducing the problems customers face with home deliveries.

Verdict Research is predicting that as confidence in the economy grows and the population grows, consumer spending will increase. A bi-annual survey of 500 small businesses conducted by Aviva shows that they have a more positive outlook for the first six months of this year, compared with two years ago. Retailers that have a distinctive brand, focus on their customers and are well run are still managing to grow. That is true of independent retailers as well as larger ones, and there are many such examples from around the country. The hon. Gentleman referred to one such small business in his constituency to which he has given his support: Gentle Cosmetics, which has recently opened a store after successfully trading online.

We are seeing increases in local shopping because of consumer demand. Research by the Association of Convenience Stores shows that the fruit and vegetable sector has experienced considerable growth as people move away from doing one big weekly shop, and are instead increasingly using local stores and shopping more often.

I turn now to some of the issues the hon. Gentleman raised. If I cannot cover all of them, I hope he will allow me to write to him in more detail. I will first say what the Government are doing to help independent retailers. As he referred to, the autumn statement announced the biggest business rates support package for 20 years, including capping the retail prices index increase in business rates at 2% next year; doubling the small business rate relief for a further year, to 31 March 2015, which will benefit over half a million small businesses; a business rates discount of £1,000 for smaller retail premises for two years, benefiting around 300,000 shops, pubs and restaurants; a 50% discount for 18 months for new occupants of property that was previously vacant; and allowing businesses to pay their rates bills over

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12 months, which will help every firm with their cash flow. In the spring we will publish a discussion paper on options for reform of business rates administration.

We have been working with the Department for Communities and Local Government on the town centre support package, which was launched on 6 December. That package includes a number of initiatives on car parking, a review of business improvement districts, consultations on new permitted development rights and other planning reforms, and a call for evidence on the red tape that could be hindering high street revival.

Bill Esterson: Before the Minister moves away from business rates, does he recognise the calls from a significant number of business organisations and individual businesses for a complete overhaul of the business rates systems? Bearing in mind my comment about business rates being from another time, what are his views on that issue?

Michael Fallon: I recognise the calls, which I have heard from business organisations such as the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores, whose conference I addressed. They would like a complete overhaul of the system. I have invited them to put their thinking caps on and to come up with some thoughts on longer-term radical reform of the system. Meanwhile, we have supported the Portas pilots with some £2.3 million. We have supported towns with high vacancy rates through the high street innovation fund and we have supported the “Love your local market” campaign.

We were very pleased to support the first ever small business Saturday. Just under half of UK consumers were aware of small business Saturday and nearly £500 million was spent on that day, an average of £33 per person. Almost one person in five said they had spent at least 50% more than they usually would. The day was supported by more than 100 local authorities who waived parking charges, including that in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I am delighted to say. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends visited small businesses on that day, as I did, and saw their commitment and energy. We were proud to help small business Saturday to be a success.

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I know that many in the independent sector are concerned about what looks like unfair competition between large and small, between grocery and other subsectors, between online and offline. We believe that consumers are served by open competition between commercial interests, so Government intervention should never be taken lightly, and any action must be evidence-based, proportionate and reasonable. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence of that not being so, it is a matter for the independent competition authorities.

Retail has always been highly competitive. Retailers are swift to change what they sell, where and how they sell it, and how they operate as businesses if that is what they need to do to drive success. However it is not for the Government to intervene in these matters. Changes in technologies and consumer habits are not something the Government or the House can stop or try to reverse, nor should we. The dividing lines between different subsectors of retail—the hon. Gentleman gave some good examples—are blurring as more and more retailers are innovating to serve customers as best they can.

Small retailers are not immune from these commercial pressures. They must adapt and innovate if they are to survive, and the best of our local stores are doing exactly that by trading online with a high street presence, by offering new products and services to customers, and by simply being the best at what they do in terms of customer service—whatever it takes. If a retailer takes market share from another retailer by doing something new or offering something different, that is the nature of the sector. I assure the hon. Gentleman that many small retailers are doing that and thriving as a result. Of course there are things the Government can do to help. Business rates and the planning system are two of the most obvious areas where the Government have a genuine role to try to help cultivate the spirit of enterprise that runs throughout the sector.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising these issues this afternoon, which I assure him are central to the commitment of the Government and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to the retail strategy, and to our refreshing of that strategy each successive year, working with the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores. I also assure him that the interests of smaller and local retailers are not being squeezed out.

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Pavements

4.54 pm

Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD): It is a pleasure, Mr Caton, to serve under your chairmanship in this debate, which someone I was talking to described as a quintessentially Liberal Democrat debate. That is why it is a great pleasure to welcome my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), to respond. I am sure that he shares in Bristol many of the problems we have in Cambridge. I know from talking to colleagues that the problem arises in many places. The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), is campaigning to try to improve the pavements in his constituency.

The issue may not sound important, but it is for people and communities. Poor pavements can trap people in their homes, making them unable to participate in the wider world and the community and society of which they would like to be part. Kevin Golding-Williams from Living Streets, the national pedestrian charity, says that

“the pavement is the most democratic piece of infrastructure a government can provide. Whether you're a pedestrian, cyclist or motorist—you will use the pavement at some point during the day.”

He continues:

“High quality pavements are important for encouraging children to walk to school, and for making places better for walking—which can boost footfall and trading by up to 40%.”

My hon. Friend the Minister might like to talk to the Secretary of State, who has often said that the only way of advancing trading is not to encourage cars, but to promote cycling and walking, which do a huge amount to promote trading. I hope that he will encourage his right hon. Friend to change the focus.

Bad pavements cause problems for many people, particularly those in wheelchairs, those with pushchairs, the elderly, those with mobility problems, the visually impaired and many others. They all struggle with a pavement that others could cope with, but our pavements should be more than something we can all cope with. I have heard numerous complaints about the problems caused by poor pavements in Cambridge and throughout the country. Last year, I was contacted by an impressive resident of Cambridge, Claire Connon, who is a wheelchair user and is tipped to row for Britain in the 2016 Paralympics. I hope she will succeed in that and bring home a medal for us. If so, she would be the first intravenously-fed Paralympian. Claire told me that she often falls out of her wheelchair as she travels around Cambridge, although she is an experienced wheelchair user. When she contacted me, it was because she had fallen out twice in 10 days, on the second occasion landing on her wrists. That could have ended her rowing career before it had had a chance to get going.

I had been involved in such matters as a councillor and a Member of Parliament, so I knew that there was a problem with potholes and other large obstacles, but until I met Claire, I had not fully realised how a small problem on the pavement could be a huge problem for

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many people. Molehills can be mountains when they are in the way of wheels that cannot get over them. Claire said:

“It isn’t until you experience using a wheelchair around the streets of Cambridge you realise how uneven they are. There’s the obvious great big holes, but also small dips with slightly raised edges that, in my wheelchair I don’t notice until you’ve hit them and then the trouble and accidents start.”

She continued:

“'Many areas have five or six different pavement types in a small area making for an uneven and dangerous pathway not just for wheelchair users, but anyone with mobility difficulties.”

After talking to Claire, I thought I should find out more, so I arranged to spend a morning in a wheelchair with Claire and two of her colleagues, M.J. Black and Naomi Hook, and a range of interested city and county councillors. It was hard work—much harder than I had expected. I had had experience of wheelchairs—I used to be a volunteer with St John Ambulance and had helped out at a care home—but I had usually pushed a chair on flat, often carpeted, surfaces. Pushing my own wheelchair through the streets was incredibly energetic, and I struggled to understand how people manage to do so day in, day out. We did not choose particularly tough areas, but went around the city centre.

Petty Cury, which I had always considered to be a reasonably smoothly paved shopping street, was a nightmare. I had not realised that because of the camber, going in a straight line meant constantly pushing with one hand while the other hand had nothing to do. That was not due to my incompetence or lack of physical fitness, because I saw experienced wheelchair users such as Claire getting stuck as they tried to negotiate and deal with poorly designed kerbs and other problems. After a few corners, the pavement would suddenly stop and there would be no ramp to descend, which was a huge problem. Cars or trees may be in the way. A whole series of things make it impossible for people to get by.

Claire and I launched a campaign, “Fix Our Pavements”, which is online at fixourpavements.co.uk, asking people to identify particular places where there are problems and to sign a petition to get those pavements improved. A lot of people have got in touch through that and signed the petition online and offline. I have to say, it is the easiest petition I have ever tried to run. People care very much about the issue, whether from personal experience—a number have experienced being in a wheelchair for some time or had to use crutches—or from their family’s, when there are ageing parents in particular. Time after time, people would say, “Yes, my mother-in-law had a problem with that.” It is a huge issue.

We have support from organisations as well, such the Whizz-Kidz charity; I am hugely honoured to be one of its parliamentary champions. It provides powered and lightweight wheelchairs and training and support for disabled children, young people and their families. It says that it is passionate about young disabled people having the freedom, opportunities and skills to fulfil their potential, and we know that the ability to travel independently and safely is an enormous part of that. Providing people with a wheelchair does not make sense if there is no way of getting around with that wheelchair. I applaud the charity’s work, particularly in providing lightweight wheelchairs, because working with a full, heavyweight, normal, NHS standard wheelchair was far too much work for me.

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This is not only a problem for wheelchair users. On a number of occasions I have been contacted by a visually impaired constituent who is involved with the Cambridge walk-in cycling liaison group and Cam Sight, a local group that works with people who are visually impaired, to talk about the issues that people with visual impairment face. I have tried to find out about some of the challenges for blind and visually impaired people trying to go around the streets of Cambridge. Back in August, I was blindfolded for about 30 minutes and I walked around the city with a guide dog. That gives one a very different sense of what it is like, what the challenges are and what people face. Small things such as cracks and lumps can cause a problem. They can trip people up and get in the way, but so too can big things. Bins left out in the path can simply block the pavement, as can cars parked on pavements. Cars and trucks, of course, are one of the very reasons why pavements are cracked in the first place, causing the problems initially. To quote a guide dog owner, because Guide Dogs has been very involved in the campaign:

“My main problem is parked cars etc. on pavements, and also on the road near junctions where I need to cross. In general, lack of safe crossing areas means I rarely go out on my own...I cannot cross safely.”

That is a serious alarm that we should care about.

Guide Dogs has proposed that the London law that bans parking on pavements except where explicitly allowed should be expanded to cover the rest of the country as well, and it should be enforced. Living Streets research found that cars parked on the pavement was the single biggest issue when people asked about clutter in the streets: 41% of people said that was an issue. We need to tackle that problem. It would help to clear the ways and help not to damage the pavements.

There are lots of other obstacles, such as A-boards left out in the path. We have even seen cases involving safety signs—even though they may be put up for sensible reasons, they can cause harm themselves, as in the case of Cambridge resident Dr Peter Lawrence. A road sign was put out to warn people that works were coming along. He did not see it in the dark, because it had been knocked over, and he ended up falling over, causing himself significant injury and harm. There are lots of obstacles, but most of us simply are not aware of them most of the time. When parking, most of us would not think about making sure that we are not blocking off access to a pavement, whether that is about somebody is getting on or off it. When leaving a bike by the side of the road, I now always try to ensure that there is space for people to get by, but not everybody thinks of that—whether it is with their bins or anything else. There is a clear problem and a large number of national organisations are keen to see action. Age UK and many others have commented on that.

What is the solution? It is not just money. I absolutely appreciate that times are tough, but money for repairs is needed. It is helpful that the Government have top-sliced £50 million a year to encourage maintenance of cycleways and footpaths. That will be worth a huge amount. In fact, better than that, it can help to avert the costs that are incurred otherwise. Research by Guide Dogs in 2011 asked a range of councils how much they spent on compensation claims to pedestrians who had injured themselves by tripping and falling on badly maintained streets between 2006 and 2010. From the people who

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responded, it found that well over £100 million was paid out in compensation. The estimate of the amount paid out in compensation, if we cover all councils and include ongoing cases, is to the order of £300 million. Surely it would be better to spend £300 million and more fixing the pavements than to pay it out to people after they have been injured.

The solution is not only about money—although if my hon. Friend the Minister announced extra money, that would be welcome—but about attitudes and ensuring that things are done correctly and properly the first time. I was told of one area, near where I happened to be door knocking last week, close to the local shops on Carlton way, where the pavements had been fixed seven times. The slabs were picked up seven times, sand was put underneath, they were relaid, and the sand was washed away again—and the cycle repeated. Time and again, people were unable to get past the blockage. The underlying problem, which I think is a blocked drain, was not being solved. A lot of effort was put into trying to fix the surface at great expense, instead of fixing the core problem.

We see that in other areas. Work is happening on Mill road in Cambridge—it is a wonderful area that I urge you to visit, Mr Caton—to try to repair the pavements that are very damaged, affecting an area with a huge range of successful independent shops. Piero D’Angelico, the chair of the Mill road traders association, has done a great job in getting that work to happen, but delivery lorries are still parking on the pavements, still blocking the road as they do so, and still cracking the pavements that have been freshly laid. We have to get out of that cycle. Slabs are laid on sand but that cannot resist the weight of those trucks. It will look very nice for a short time, but then it will start to break down again, I am afraid.

Similarly, when roadworks are done, reinstatement is rarely as good as it needs to be, which is one of the major causes of potholes on the roads, as well as on the pavements. I have been talking to the Local Government Association’s street works task force, which is doing a piece of work—I was involved at the launch, and it will report soon—as well as county experts to try to find ways of ensuring that that does not happen, because the constant cycle of fixing things is not an efficient use of money. We have to try to avoid those scars.

There are problems with trees, as their roots can really push up the pavement and make it impossible for people to get past. Nobody is suggesting cutting down all the trees, but new surfaces, which are much more flexible and rubberised, can be used, so that we do not get huge mountains where the tree has grown. That would be a nice way forward so that people can get by and we still get to keep our trees.

There are many other problems that we should try to deal with, and I encourage people to report them. My colleague, the mayor of Cambridge, Paul Saunders, has now reported more than 500 problems that he has observed around Cambridge through the wonderful FixMyStreet website. Not all those have been repaired yet, but that shows the sort of scale involved. It also shows the value of civil society in ensuring that those reports can be made, so that people are aware of them. I urge other MPs, councillors, highways engineers and even Ministers to do what I did with Claire and with the guide dogs: to experience what it is like to get around in

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a wheelchair or if unable to see. Anyone who tries that would soon see the new surfaces that they are responsible for with new eyes and with the sort of determination that I now have to ensure that they are sorted out and improved. That would make a huge difference.

One of the top priorities of the Department for Communities and Local Government is to bring people together in strong, united communities. One of the key priorities for Liberal Democrats—part of our constitution —is to champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals. We cannot deliver on either of those priorities if people cannot get about, because the pavements will not let them do so.

5.9 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing the debate this afternoon. He opened his remarks by saying that the issue is probably one that I am familiar with in Bristol. I listened carefully to what he was saying; many of his points resonated with me not only in connection with my almost nine years as the Member of Parliament for Bristol West, but more directly with when I was a county councillor for the city centre ward in the 1990s.

Such issues were raised constantly by constituents at that time, particularly the obstruction of pavements by shops’ and cafés’ A-boards. Indeed, we had annual, almost perverse debates when setting the county’s budget—later on, the unitary authority’s budget in Bristol—about the insurance premium that the council had to pay to deal with accidents on the highway and whether that could be mitigated by extra investment in pavements.

I commend my hon. Friend on his direct approach to researching the topic and on his work with Guide Dogs for the Blind and other charities, and on even sitting in a wheelchair. I also commend him on giving people a solution. I had a look at his website before coming into the debate, and I saw the link to the website that he mentioned in his speech: fixourpavements.co.uk. Officials have pointed out to me—I am not suggesting that he changes the domain name; I am sure he has gone to great trouble to secure it— that in highway engineering terms, the correct term is “footways”, because pavements are apparently classified as what we would normally call roads. Whatever he has chosen to call it, I hope his website is a great campaign success in Cambridge. It is perhaps a model that other constituency Members will be adopting around the country.

Walkable neighbourhoods are typically characterised by having a range of facilities available to all residents that can be accessed comfortably on foot. Making the local environment convenient and attractive to walk in can help enhance the vibrancy of a community and reduce reliance on motor transport. So it is important that local highway authorities, which are responsible for footways, recognise the importance of keeping them in good order.

The Highways Act 1980 states clearly that the footway is an integral part of the highway. I note with interest the various initiatives being undertaken by my hon. Friend and the 2016 Paralympics hopeful, Claire Connon,

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in respect of setting up the campaign that I referred to earlier. Local highway authorities—in his case, Cambridgeshire county council—are responsible for repairing their highway networks. That includes ensuring the repair and renewal of everything from major bridges to potholes. Of course, there will be a lot of that after the recent, and continuing, wet weather. As part of the service, they are also responsible for maintaining footways—from removing weeds to repairing or replacing broken or missing slabs. Central Government help in that process by providing funding. The Department for Transport leads by providing capital support to authorities through what is known as the highways maintenance capital block grant.

Between 2011 and 2015—the current spending round—the Department for Transport is providing more than £3.4 billion to local highway authorities for highway maintenance. The funding includes additional expenditure that has been provided to help assist authorities to deal with problems they have encountered on their transport networks, caused by extreme weather events that the country has encountered since 2010. So it is not just this year; it is the previous extreme weather events that we have experienced as well.

Over that four-year period, we are providing Cambridgeshire county council with more than £48 million. Perhaps my hon. Friend will interrogate county councillors and highways officers from the county council on how they are spending that £48 million. I am sure he will want to ensure that Cambridge gets its fair share.

Dr Huppert: The Minister is absolutely right. It is the county’s role. He may not be aware that there was a scrutiny review of work with pavements led by a Liberal Democrat councillor colleague, and I will be taking the matter up further with the county council.

Does the Minister accept that there is a question about priority? He is right to say that a lot of money goes into the maintenance. Does he think that people always put pavements—or footways, as he correctly calls them—in the same category as roads? There is always a lot of discussion about fixing roads or building new roads, but never quite as much attention to the footways, which seem to get neglected.

Stephen Williams: My hon. Friend makes an entirely reasonable point. As well as being the Minister for Communities, I am also responsible for the localism agenda. I know he will agree, as a good localist himself, that it is up to local authorities to decide what their priorities are. Indeed, the money that Cambridgeshire county council gets—£48 million—is not ring-fenced; it is up to democratically elected councillors on that authority to decide what priority they wish to give to certain issues and how to spend that particular budget. Of course, county councillors, just like Members of Parliament, can be responsive to constituents’ views, but that is an issue for Cambridgeshire rather than for my Department.

In June last year, the Government announced, as part of the 2013 spending review, that they were committed to providing a further £5.8 billion for local highways maintenance to local authorities in England, outside London, between 2015 and 2021. That equates to £976 million per annum and highlights the Government’s continuing commitment to help make sure our roads and footways are fit for the future.

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The Department for Transport has recently published a document that seeks views from highways authorities such as Cambridgeshire and other key organisations on how best to distribute the £5.8 billion to ensure that we get the best value for money for the taxpayer. The document suggests a number of ideas on how the funding could be allocated to local highway authorities, including one that would set aside part of the funding from the £5.8 billion for the maintenance of cycling and walking facilities. I know that cycling is a huge passion of my hon. Friend’s, and I commend him for the work that he has done in promoting safe cycling.

The Government also work with sector organisations, including the UK Roads Liaison Group, to encourage authorities to help develop asset management plans. Such plans are vital if local authorities are to take proper care of their highway assets. That will help authorities ensure that the highway infrastructure, including footways, is maintained efficiently. Asset management plans should not be documents that engineers write and then put on a shelf, although I am sure a lot of that goes on; they should provide a clear statement of the local authority’s highway assets, their condition and the level of service that the council wants to deliver. Again, I suggest my hon. Friend takes that up with officers on the ground in Cambridgeshire.

My hon. Friend alluded to the many benefits of well-maintained footways and pedestrianisation in relation to the environment in Cambridge. I have seen such benefits in Bristol. Evidence certainly suggests that investment in walking and the wider public realm can increase economic value and economic activity in local areas. A United States study undertaken in 2012 suggests that well-planned improvements in the public realm can help to boost footfall and trading by up to 40%. In addition, people on foot also tend to linger longer in key shopping areas in towns and cities and spend more than those who travel by car.

People-friendly streets, including good cycling and walking networks, benefit everyone and provide benefits for our health, as well as boosting local economic growth. My hon. Friend mentioned the Olympics and Paralympics, and all of us still have different memories of those occasions that inspired us. One of the legacies that the Government definitely want to see from those events in London is that more children and adults should get active and become more healthy as a result.

That is a cross-Government aspiration. Last August, the Department of Health announced a £5 million initiative to encourage children and families to exercise more. As part of that funding, £1 million is being provided simply for walking initiatives, to help people get more active. I understand that Cambridge will benefit from the funding in the form of a new footway and cycleway route between the train station and Cambridge science park, to which I am sure my hon. Friend is a frequent visitor, as he is one of the few scientists in the House of Commons. The science park is also a major employment centre for the city economy.

The Department for Transport has also supported “walk to school” week, which is an excellent opportunity for schools to engage with children and parents and to encourage walking to school. In addition, the £600 million local sustainable transport fund includes a range of schemes designed to help improve local facilities for

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pedestrians, including better routes and signage, improved crossings and new footbridges.

My hon. Friend mentioned dropped kerbs and obstacles on the pavement. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, public authorities have a general duty to promote equality, and those who design, manage and maintain buildings and public spaces have a specific obligation to ensure that people can play a full part in benefiting from and shaping an inclusive built environment. We encourage local authorities to consult representatives of various user groups to help inform the design of local streets.

Not all disability relates to difficulties with mobility, so it is important not to overlook the needs of those with sensory or cognitive impairment, the elderly and young parents with pushchairs. I find it helpful to think of people not simply as being disabled, which is the language often used, but as being disabled by the environment in which they must operate. Politicians at all levels must try mitigate those problems as far as possible.

The Department for Transport promotes guidance for practitioners involved in the planning, provision and approval of new residential streets and modifications to existing ones. The guidance highlights the importance of street design’s being inclusive to accommodate all people regardless of age or ability. It advises on a number of appropriate surface level crossings that might be provided, where practicable, to connect pedestrian networks to one another, particularly where those networks are separated by heavily trafficked roads.

The guidance also explains that street furniture, which is typically sited on footways, can be a hazard for users and suggests that it be minimised wherever possible. In Cambridge, Bristol and other places, I believe that the local authority might benefit from an audit of its street furniture—a highway engineers’ term for clutter, which denotes signage, railings and so on—to see what might be cleared away, with a particular focus on the supposedly temporary signs that linger for a long time after the events that they advertise have happened. People are keen to put things up but not always so keen to take them down.

I turn finally to parking on footways, which my hon. Friend mentioned several times. Cambridge has many narrow streets in which that will always be a factor. We fully appreciate that parking on a footway or verge can cause serious problems for pedestrians—particularly those in wheelchairs, those who have visual impairments and parents or grandparents pushing prams and pushchairs. Indiscriminate pavement parking may also damage the verge or footway, and the burden of repair costs normally falls on the local highway authority. In some streets, parking on footways may be inevitable to maintain free passage of traffic while meeting the needs of local residents and businesses, and traffic signs are prescribed for this purpose. It would not be possible to get a refuse wagon, let alone an emergency vehicle, down some of Bristol’s narrow streets if that were not the case. That is often left to the common sense of local residents.

Local authorities outside London have wide-ranging powers under sections 1 and 2 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to make traffic regulation orders that prohibit pavement parking on designated lengths of highway or over a wide area. Such pavement parking bans outside London would need to be appropriately

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signed so that motorists were aware of the restriction. In areas where the local authority has obtained civil parking enforcement powers, civil enforcement officers can enforce pavement parking bans on designated highways by issuing penalty charge notices. In February 2011, the then Transport Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), wrote to all local authorities outside London prompting them to use their existing powers to prevent people from parking on the pavement where that was a problem.

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In conclusion, the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that pavements are not obstructed by vehicles, street furniture or other privately-owned paraphernalia. It is not simply down to Government, however; I always say as a Liberal that Government and the state are not always the answer. It is up to all of us to encourage responsible behaviour, exercise common sense and show basic courtesy for the road needs of others.

Question put and agreed to.

5.24 pm

Sitting adjourned.