Joe Morris

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson) on securing such an important debate and on covering so comprehensively and so vividly the challenges in the retail investment sector. When I speak to people across my constituency about the challenges they face and particularly when I speak to entrepreneurs, the lack of financial education in schools often comes up; too often, however, a lack of confidence in rural infrastructure is also raised with me, and as the MP for a very sparsely populated seat, I will focus my remarks in part on that issue, as well as on some of the points that are more directly relevant to retail investment. One of the things I have discussed with local businesses such as the Allendale Brewery, which I managed to visit over the recess, is the lack of targeted support, not just for retail investment but for entrepreneurs in rural areas, to make sure that their business ideas can be brought to completion. Grants or other forms of support relevant to urban areas simply do not exist in rural areas where, to be honest, the jobs created through such investment can have a transformational impact, due to the fact that a couple of jobs created in a small village will have a far greater effect than the creation of a couple of jobs in a city. While we are talking about banks and large financial services, I also recognise that the withdrawal of those services and organisations from rural communities is incredibly worrying and incredibly damaging to people starting their investment, who cannot see anyone with the knowledge or ability to advise them. People are unable to go to those institutions for life’s expected or unexpected moments. If the proposed Lloyds closures across the Hexham constituency go through, there will be very few bank branches in my constituency, which will present a major challenge. I raised the subject in an Adjournment debate shortly after I was elected, so I know that the Minister is very aware of my position and views on rural bank branch closures, but I will not miss an opportunity to raise it again. I also quickly want to raise an issue brought to my attention by the Vintage Hub, a fantastic business in my constituency. Its owners, Lisa and Douglas, were faced with a 40% rent increase from Advance Northumberland, an arm’s length body of Northumberland county council, which was simply not sustainable. One of the issues that I constantly hear about is lack of appropriate infrastructure, with the hiking up of rents driving people out of what are often commercially viable businesses. I know that the Vintage Hub is a very successful business, but in the block that it rents three businesses were forced to leave the unit because of the rent rise inflicted on them by an arms-length body of the Tory-run Northumberland county council. I am sure the Minister is listening to this, but we need to ensure that we develop a financial services growth and competitiveness strategy that does not just prioritise retail investment across the country to restore our high streets, but takes into account the unique circumstances of local communities. It needs to get long-term, patient capital into communities that will otherwise be left behind in the past. I am thinking of smaller villages across the Tyne valley in areas that have been forgotten about for far too long, where we consistently see “To Let” or “For Sale” signs on prominent, attractive high street shops. We need to encourage development. I hope that how best to deploy retail investment capital is a major part of what the Government look at going forward.