Britain’s high streets have faced increasing pressures in recent years (Alamy)

3 min read14 min

The government announced on Monday night that it will also tighten the definition of a vape shop to prevent owners from getting around current rules by describing themselves as a general convenience shop or retailer. 

There will also be new measures targeting large betting shops and what ministers describe as rogue businesses, with the PM saying that previous governments “stood by” while high streets suffered.

“Local councils will be given the powers they need to rein in unwanted shops and bring town centres back to life,” the Prime Minister said.

The government highlighted research by the Centre for Social Justice think tank showing that the number of vape and tobacco shops has risen by more than 2,000 nationwide since 2016, while the number of pubs and bars has diminished by nearly 1,800.

High streets have come under intense pressure in recent years with rising costs and customers switching to online shopping. Research shared with PoliticsHome last year found that support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK had been rising most in areas that had seen the most acute high street decline.

The government has announced that it will revoke the Gambling Act’s “Aim to Permit” rule, which currently restricts the ability of councils to refuse new betting shops and 24-hour slot machine shops even where there are strong local concerns.

Ministers will also work with councils to improve the appearance of high streets and help restore pride in local town centres, pointing to “poor-quality shopfronts, garish neon signs, and oversized logos”, which have prompted complaints from local people and contributed to high streets feeling less welcoming.

In addition, there are plans to double the maximum length of closure orders from six months to a year –  under which a business or premises can be closed while it is investigated – to allow police and local authorities more time to look into premises linked to organised crime, pursue prosecutions, and prevent rogue businesses reopening before investigations are complete.

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, said: “These problems have built up over years, but this government won’t leave councils and communities powerless to crack down on everyday eyesores that blight our high streets. 

“That’s why we’re giving local leaders the power to say no to what doesn’t belong on their high street, and the tools to fix it themselves.”

Burnham added: “For many people, the high streets they grew up with have been hollowed out and become unrecognisable over decades of decline. The rise of vape shops, betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shops, services, and community spaces that people are crying out for. 

“That’s not on. I said we would improve Britain’s high streets, and that’s exactly what we are starting to do. We’re putting communities back in control and giving local people a real say over what opens on their high street. Local councils will be given the powers they need to rein in unwanted shops and bring town centres back to life.”

This summer has been the driest summer in England and Wales since records began in 1836. (Alamy)

4 min read8 min

Around three-quarters of people (74 per cent) told an Ipsos poll they are concerned about climate change, up from 69 per cent before the summer. At the same time, the share of people who say they are unconcerned has fallen from 28 per cent to 24 per cent.

Over half (56 per cent) said recent high temperatures had affected everyday activities like work, exercise and sleep either a great deal or a fair amount.

Eighty-seven per cent said it is likely that the country will face similar summer heatwaves in the future, compared with just 3 per cent who said it is unlikely.

The online poll of 1,085 people was carried out against a backdrop of heatwaves, drought and wildfires across the UK.

July was the driest month in England and Wales since records began nearly two centuries ago, with the Environment Agency warning that the heat was affecting farmers, wildlife and water availability. Large parts of the country are subject to hosepipe bans, while a recent wildfire in Suffolk was described as the size of 210 football pitches.

Major wildfires have also impacted European countries like France, Greece and Spain.

Raquel de Luis, Head of Energy and Environment at Ipsos in the UK, told PoliticsHome: “The intense heat this summer and visible wildfires across Europe have served as a visible focus point around discussions on climate change, which may be driving a clear uptick in immediate concern and leaving nearly nine in ten convinced that these heatwaves are our new normal.”

When respondents were asked what measures they planned to install in the next two to three years to help cool their homes, portable air conditioning was the most selected option (29 per cent), followed by a fixed air conditioning unit (23 per cent) and blackout blinds or curtains (19 per cent).

Of those who told Ipsos they do not plan to make changes to their homes to cope with heat, the most common reason was affordability (39 per cent).

“The key challenge for Westminster will be delivering accessible, cost-effective infrastructure and adaptation support that enables households to build resilience against recurring summer heat without adding to their financial burdens,” said de Luis.

Paul McNamee, Director at the Labour Climate and Environment Forum, said the findings show that Labour MPs are right to keep making the case for the UK’s net zero targets at a time when parties on the right are calling for them to be relaxed.

“It has been really good to see Andy Burnham knock some money off energy bills to address people’s concerns [about cost of living],” he added.

“But we also need to keep on rolling out renewables and upgrade our grid to make sure it’s fit for purpose for a future of clean energy, and our main ask is [making] sure that the government makes the absolute most out of the electrification benefits that sit beneath it.”

However, he said there is more that can be done in the short term to boost community resilience in the face of extreme heat, like creating green spaces where people can cool down and better managing land to help avert wildfires. 

Managing Director of the Conservative Environment Network, John Flesher, said the government needs to do more on adaptation because the country isn’t “well enough prepared” to deal with the effects of extreme hot weather as things stand.

“We need to think a lot more about preparing for this,” he told PoliticsHome, pointing to water security and agriculture as areas of high importance. “It’s terrible what this [extreme heat] could mean for the cost of food, for farmers’ abilities to conduct their harvest as normal.”

Tom Bradshaw, President of the National Farmers Union, recently told the BBC that the UK has taken its food supply for granted for far too long and called for more resilience planning.

“Those other countries around the world that we currently rely on to produce our food and vegetables, their climates are changing as well,” said Bradshaw.

“It does feel like there is going to be some shortages of [food] products.”

The former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has warned the big tech firms are winning in the battle over regulation (Alamy)

3 min read11 min

Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, said that during her time in government, parts of Whitehall, including No 10, were reluctant to take action for fear of retaliation by tech giants and the Donald Trump administration.

Speaking on the latest episode of PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown, which will be published on Friday (7 August), Phillips said: “We are too beholden currently in the world to basically five unelected people.”

The Labour MP resigned as a Home Office minister in May, accusing the Keir Starmer administration of not working hard enough to protect women and girls online. Phillips said Starmer was a “decent man” but his reluctance to “have an argument” meant that steps to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) were “stalled and delayed”.

In her resignation letter to the then-prime minister, Phillips said that “91 per cent of online child sex abuse is self-generated by children groomed, tricked and exploited into abuse”, and that Google and Apple, the two companies that control the operating systems on almost all smartphones, could quickly and easily install software that would stop them being used by children to take and receive naked pictures.

In June, Starmer gave tech firms a September deadline to make this change, warning that the government would give itself the powers to fine or take criminal action against those that did not comply.

Phillips wants new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to hold them to this, telling the podcast that, as things stand, “tech companies are winning in a big, big way”.

The former minister said there was a divide within Whitehall about how to tackle online safety when she was in government. She described the Home Office as being “hawkish as hell about tech companies”, while No 10 and the now-abolished Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) were nervous about being too aggressive.

Phillips recalled “the sense that tech companies and the US would hold us to ransom on all sorts of different things”, adding: “I’ve had it directly said to my face, ‘well, look, they’ll just put trade levies on us if you try and do anything with tech companies’.”

She said Starmer “was always on my side in conversations”, but that she “just started to feel like I was going slowly mad” waiting for the machinery of government to make it happen.

“If you could hear some of the conversations I had to have with people. There are some people who genuinely just think that people taking dick pics is a human right,” Phillips said. 

“I had to say to somebody once: ‘You know, you won’t die. It’s not water or shelter’.”

Phillips expressed concern that the government’s Online Safety Act is “woeful for women” in its current form and “20 years behind” where it needs to be to tackle evolving online harms.

“As somebody who was seeking to put down lots of amendments to the Online Safety Act while it was passing through, I’ve never known aggressive lobbying like it,” said the Labour MP. “Every single law firm in the whole of London was basically on retainer to one of the big tech companies so that they couldn’t work for anyone else. That is just anti-democratic.”

The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

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