Alex Ballinger

I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of tackling illicit activity in high street shops. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. Before I start, I want to put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) and for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt), who have been leading the dodgy shops campaign in Parliament. I am pleased to see that there are 50 MPs working to support this important issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes could not make it here today, but I will raise some of the issues that she asked me to raise. High streets are at the centre of our communities. When our constituents look at them, they judge how our towns feel and how they feel about our towns. In Halesowen constituency, people want to see our high streets succeed. We have many independent and successful shops such as Bella’s Beautiful Things in Halesowen, Betty Stitchkit in Quarry Bank, and Cradley Heath DIY in Cradley Heath. We also have fantastic community groups that work hard to make our towns beautiful, such as Halesowen in Bloom and Cradley Heath and Old Hill in Bloom, whose volunteers do fantastic work. But the truth is that, as the challenges to retail have increased, old established shops are closing and new shops are popping up in their place: vape shops, mini-markets and barbers. Although the majority of those shops are perfectly legitimate, there is increasing evidence that what the public suspect is true: many are involved in money laundering, counterfeit goods and other criminality. In fact, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, whose members are on high streets every day, tells me that in some areas up to half of mini-markets and vape shops have links to organised crime.