Harpreet Uppal

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) on securing this important debate. As other Members have noted, town centres are incredibly important to residents, and Huddersfield is no different. The town centre is a part of our identity; it is a reminder of our childhoods, and, for many, it represents whether a place is doing well and whether agencies, councils and Governments care about them. In too many places in the north and the midlands, people have seen the slow decline of their town centre—the place they call home. That has led to resentment and a lack of trust in politicians and agencies to get the basics right. On top of that, the number of vape shops in England has grown by nearly 1,200% in little over a decade. While cash-intensive businesses are not new, for too many residents the rate at which they are rising is alarming. The National Crime Agency estimates that at least £1 billion of criminal cash is laundered through UK high street stores each year. Not only do those stores often provide hotspots for illicit activity, they also destroy the character that makes towns so special. From my conversations with constituents at coffee mornings, at business round tables and on doorsteps, I have heard loud and clear that closing those stores is vital to injecting the life back into our town centre. I welcome the creation of the Government’s high street organised crime unit, particularly its focus on strengthening partnership working and the intensified enforcement action on businesses that are committing these offences, which includes additional raids, closure orders and cash seizures. In November 2025, the West Yorkshire trading standards team conducted undercover raids to crack down on high street businesses suspected of laundering criminal cash. The operation seized £2.7 million of criminal assets. The feedback from those operations has been positive and they will be continuing. Will the Minister set out when further enforcement activities like those will be increased in local areas? In addition, what further steps are being taken to connect information across agencies and to flag suspicious entities so that such operations can be closed down quickly and, as other Members have said, stopped from popping up again? A recent report by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, titled “Hidden in Plain Sight”, highlighted a corridor of crime across the north of England, from Liverpool to Hull and Grimsby. Unfortunately, Huddersfield has been ranked in the top 10 UK towns and cities with the most dodgy shops on the high street. The report calls on the Government to urgently invest in enforcement capabilities and particularly mentions trading standards. Over the past decade, trading standards has seen its resources cut by up to 50%. In 2002, more than 4,000 staff were employed by trading standards, but in 2025, there are now 2,300. Since then, crime has become more visible, so will the Minister confirm the steps being taken to support trading standards on the ground? We must ensure that our town centres can once again become vibrant spaces worth fighting for.