Josh Fenton-Glynn

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) for securing this debate, which has been a wonderful tour of Members’ high streets, although, as a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, I cannot recommend a deep-fried Mars bar. I pay tribute to those who, on top of running their own businesses, put time into a broader business community, such as Calder Valley’s town deal boards, including in Todmorden, Elland and Brighouse, and those who have helped their towns to thrive by having a bigger vision for what their towns can be. Even though I did not always see eye to eye with local businesses on parking charges when I was a councillor, those businesses show how the spark of an idea can end up as a dream that becomes part of a community of successful businesses, because success breeds success. Calder Valley is a series of towns, all of which have their own personalities. A great proponent of this theory is the Totally Locally campaign, a national campaign that was founded in Calder Valley and remains active in the towns of Brighouse, Elland, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. It extols the virtues of local businesses’ working together and the power of spending money locally. Their annual “Magic Tenner” campaign uses analysis from the New Economics Foundation that found that £10 spent in a local shop could be worth as much as £50 to the local economy, as those local shops use local suppliers, so the money is recycled again and again. The campaign highlights that by having participating businesses offer deals for a tenner, and we are going to see that operating throughout Calder Valley and across the country starting next week and running until 16 March. I urge people to take part in those Totally Locally campaigns. I pay tribute to the small-business owners of Calder Valley who started with a dream and ended up building a proud business community.