Lord Thurlow (CB)

I will briefly add a few comments. I wholeheartedly support Amendment 11 from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in principle. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has clearly illustrated what happens to a town centre when the anchor departs and the economic health of the shopping environment dies. The problem we have is that of definitions. When a comprehensive town centre development is designed by developers, it contains, without fail, something called an MSU—a major space unit. That is the anchor, the John Lewis or the Marks & Spencer. When that goes, the only possible replacement, generally speaking, is a supermarket. If the supermarket becomes the anchor of the economic health of the high street, at the back of a shopping centre, filling the space of the department store that was there before, the supermarket really has to be described as an anchor. I do not disagree with the concept, but it makes the problem one of definitions and gets back to the question of use classes, which we will perhaps be able to speak about with the Bill team at another time. I agree with the principle of this amendment, but I think it is more complicated. We need to get to the bottom of it, but it is one of definitions.