The following amendments have been selected: amendments 1 and 3 in the name of Paul Davies, and amendment 2 in the name of Jane Hutt. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected.

We move on to item 4, which is the Plaid Cymru debate on the high street and town centres. I call on Sian Gwenllian to move the motion—Sian.

Motion NDM6112 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Recognises the importance of a vibrant and diverse high street in supporting local enterprise.

2. Regrets that the shop vacancy rate on our high streets is consistently higher than the UK average.

3. Regrets the loss of community assets or local services as a result of low footfall on Welsh high streets.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to set up a new fund to enable local authorities and community groups to offer free car parking in towns throughout Wales, providing a vital boost to town centre regeneration.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I move the motion in the name of Plaid Cymru. Plaid Cymru wants to regain pride in our towns and to tackle the decline that many of them have faced and are facing. These days, a number of our town centres are half empty and are full of shops with boarded-up windows. In such an environment, it’s not surprising that many people choose to go to out-of-town retail parks, shop online, or jump in the car to go elsewhere.

The Welsh Government has a role to play in bringing back pride to our town centres. We want them to be attractive areas where people choose to spend their free time to shop and socialise.

Successful town centres have many activities to offer in order to attract visitors. We must ensure that towns are able to offer a variety of cultural activities and local services too, side by side with the shops, in order to increase the number of visitors.

The figures for the number of visitors give a clear picture of the situation of some of our towns throughout Wales. Since 2012, there’s been a substantial decrease in some towns, such as Abergavenny—39 per cent fewer people visit the town centre there; in Mold, 28 per cent fewer; in Aberystwyth, 18 per cent fewer people. Of course, this leads to the closure of shops and local services and assets disappear. Perhaps this is part of the continuous decline because of the increase in vacant shops. Recent figures from the Local Data Company show that Wales has the highest national vacant shop rate in the whole of the UK—Wales, 15 per cent; Scotland, 12 per cent; England, 11 per cent. Newport, for example, is one of those towns or cities that perform worst in the whole of Britain, with the percentage of empty shops at 25 per cent. In Bangor, in my constituency, the rate is 21.8 per cent of vacant shops—

Will the Member give way?

[Yn parhau.]—yn y Rhyl, mae 21.6 y cant o siopau’n wag.

I’m grateful. I was a little surprised by reference to continuous declines and then citing Abergavenny and saying it was down 39 per cent. I’ve found Abergavenny has been thriving as a town and there’s much positive commercial there, and then in Newport, Friar’s Walk and the development there, I think, has led to more people coming back into the town centre. I just wonder if the statistics the Member cites are overly negative, at least for that town and that city.

I am quoting from official statistics. Although, perhaps, there are periods of time in Abergavenny—at the time of the food festival it does appear to be very busy there, but, when you take the whole year into account, facts and statistics demonstrate a different picture, unfortunately. I’m sorry to be negative, but that is the situation, but our motion offers a way of improving that.

Evidence shows that destinations outwith towns that offer free car parking gain at the expense of town centres and a number of councils throughout Wales do offer free parking—for periods over Christmas, for example—in an effort to attract people to spend in our town centres. But we know about the financial pressures on councils at the moment, and so what our motion calls for is the establishment of a new fund to enable local authorities and community groups to offer free car parking in towns throughout Wales. Such a fund would enable local authorities to bid for a grant to compensate them, in a way, for any lost parking fees, and to offer free car parking for a few hours in order to support towns that are truly in need of that. We would need specific criteria for this fund in order to ensure that the towns needing that assistance actually receive it. Of course, this would be part of a broader strategy.

The free parking offered has to be part of a strategy offering things such as business rates, which are a vital part of any regeneration scheme. Considering the business rates, I was extremely disappointed to see the Government stepping back from the pledge to improve the rating system for small businesses in Wales. Extending the current system doesn’t equate to a further discount in those business rates. Our policy is to increase rate relief so that over 7,000 small and medium-sized businesses would be released from paying any rates at all, and 20,000 other businesses would also receive some relief.

Also, as part of a regeneration strategy, business improvement areas can be very successful—business improvement areas being led by the local business community and then they invest in turn in developments and plans based on local priorities. The Bangor BID and Hwb Caernarfon, for example, are business improvement areas and they’ve seen businesses paying a levy of 1.5 per cent of the rateable value, and that funding then has been used to invest in and improve the area.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

I’m glad you mentioned business improvement districts. In the case of Abergavenny, which was mentioned earlier, the local businesses there actually voted against having a business improvement district, so do you accept that they’re not the be-all and end-all across Wales for improving trade in towns?

It is up to them locally—it’s their option—but I know that in my area the districts have led to success and have been welcomed by local businesses. What those local businesses were telling me time after time was that parking charges militate against the improvements they’re trying to make, and so this is one way of addressing that. In Caernarfon, for example, there are 347 businesses within the improvement district called Hwb Caernarfon, and they raise over £400,000 to invest in improvements in the town in order to improve the economic projections and forecasts for the area. So, the idea here is to support these small businesses, and this fund would contribute to improving our town centres, something that we are all supportive of, I’m certain.

Thank you very much. I have selected the amendments to the motion and I call on—. Sorry, I’ve selected three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on Russell George to move amendments 1 and 3 tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Amendment 1—Paul Davies

Delete point 4 and replace with:

Calls on the Welsh Government to provide a stimulus for Welsh high streets by developing a long-term regeneration strategy, incorporating planning policy, public transport, and fostering closer links between retail businesses and local authorities.

Amendment 3—Paul Davies

Add new point at end of motion

Recognises the importance of businesses which provide services on the high street.

Amendments 1 and 3 moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to take part in this debate today. I’ll enjoy taking part in it because it’s an issue that I feel passionate about. The Welsh Conservatives have very often brought forward debates on this issue, and it’s welcome that we’ve got another one today; let’s keep having them until the issue is resolved. I look forward to the day when we don’t have debates on regenerating our high streets because the Government and we as politicians have addressed the issues. But I do move the amendments in the name of Paul Davies.

I should say in regard to our own amendments that we very much support Plaid’s motion today, and we support the principle of free parking. I’m a big advocate of free parking, especially of one- or two-hour free parking in town centres; I think that’s absolutely crucial. That’s been a policy of the Welsh Conservatives for some time. We seek to amend the motion today by broadening the issue out in a wider context, but I should point out that we very much do support Plaid’s position on that.

Our second amendment aims to encourage services to be located in town centres. I think this is a matter not just for one Minister but all Cabinet Secretaries, especially the Cabinet Secretary for health and well-being. I did a visit in my constituency on Friday to the Dudley Taylor Pharmacies, and met with the manager, Dylan Jones, and also with Russell Goodway, from Community Pharmacy Wales. What I noticed when I went into that shop in Llanidloes was that it went back a very long way. Fortunately, I’m quite a well person and I don’t need to go into pharmacies very often, but it just went back. As I got to the back, there were all these staff bustling around as well, and I said, ‘How many staff are here?’—’Eleven staff.’ And it was clear that that business was the anchor business in that particular street. What occurred to me, as we had discussion about the pharmacy supporting the health of the town, was, in fact, that pharmacy was supporting the health of the high street. There was no suggestion that there was any threat to that pharmacy moving, but what did occur to me was that, if that pharmacy was present on other streets in other towns across Wales, and not just the pharmacy, but also opticians and doctors’ surgeries located in the town centre—. I was going to say banks as well, but, unfortunately, Llanidloes is a good example of where they had four banks some years ago, and now it’s got one bank that is part-time, so it’s difficult to encourage banks into our town centres; it’s a job just to keep them there.

But I think it is deeply regrettable that shop vacancy rates on the high street continue to rise, and consistently higher than the UK averages as well, brought about by low footfall to our town centres. Very often, this is due to buildings being left in disrepair. Another example is another town in my constituency, Newtown, where the Ladywell shopping centre, the big unit there, is empty. The Co-op was there a few years ago, and the fact that it has pulled out of there and gone is now, of course, impacting on all the smaller units that are around that premises as well.

I, where I can, like to use local shops. Occasionally, I will shop in Tesco when the other smaller shops are—[Interruption.] It’s not a bad thing to shop in Tesco; I’m not suggesting that. But when town centre shops are closed, then I’ll go into Tesco. It wasn’t that long ago, I was in Tesco—and many of you who do your shopping will know that it’s a good place to hold your constituency surgeries—and I had somebody charging towards me with frustration. I thought, ‘They’re going to say something to me, now’, and basically, the short version was, ‘What are you doing about all these shops closing?’ They had a massive basket of produce, overflowing, and all I did was look down, look back up at them and I think they understood what I was saying.

But the issue there is to say that we recognise that the high street is changing due to the internet and due to out-of-town shopping centres; we’ve got to recognise that it’s happening and address that by encouraging other services to come in and use town centre facilities.

I had a meeting this morning—it was a breakfast meeting, not a Brexit meeting; a breakfast meeting. Our committee had—[Interruption.] I’ll be in trouble now. It was—[Interruption.] I was just telling the Chamber I had a breakfast meeting this morning. [Laughter.] At this breakfast meeting this morning of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, we spoke to small businesses—[Laughter.] How am I going to carry on, now? We spoke to small businesses about their concerns—

You’re out of time, as well. So, can you now come to a very quick conclusion, please?

I will wind up by saying that their biggest issue was the impact that business rates were having on their small businesses, and their frustration, and our frustration, that a manifesto commitment of tax cuts for 70,000 businesses isn’t actually a tax cut; it’s just a continuation of what was there before. Thank you for allowing me extra time, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Okay. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children to formally move amendment 2 tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Amendment 2—Jane Hutt

In point 4, delete ‘Calls on the Welsh Government to set’ and replace with:

‘Agrees to explore further the desirability of setting’.

Amendment 2 moved.

Formally.

Thank you. Lee Waters.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I think there’s some common ground with the motion that Plaid Cymru have put down. There is no doubt that the face of retail has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and we don’t want town centres just to be a place of shops. We want them to be more than that; we want them to be hubs of the community. On that, I think we can all agree.

What I found depressing from Sian Gwenllian’s speech was the focus on car parking as the main answer to that. I find that depressing for two reasons: one is double standards, but also the fact that it’s a false premise. First, on the double standards, in Carmarthenshire, Plaid Cymru campaigned heavily for free car parking ahead of taking control of the local authority. We heard about it ad nauseam, week after week, and as soon as they took over control of the council, not only did they not deliver free car parking as they promised they would, but they made the situation worse. They’re now expanding the out-of-town Parc Trostre retail park, at a time when they’re claiming to show sympathy for the town centre.

They’ve set up a taskforce that doesn’t meet and the local business improvement district claims not to be supported by the council. And so, the words we had about delivering free car parking, which you’ve heard repeated again this afternoon—when they get the chance to put them into practice, they did not deliver on them.

The other point that I think is hypocritical: yesterday, we sat through Leanne Wood chastising the Government for not emphasising enough its target for tackling climate change, lamenting the fact that we didn’t talk enough about the 2020 target and emphasising the importance and the urgency of tackling climate change. Today, a day after, we have a stress on a policy that would make climate change worse; it would increase car dependency. So, there’s a profound contradiction in support here, on the one hand saying we need to think differently and do differently, and, a day after, saying we should put all our eggs in the basket of increasing car traffic, despite the fact that, given the chance—[Interruption.] No, let me proceed. Despite the fact that, when given the chance to put this policy into practice, they’ve done nothing.

On the second—[Interruption.] Let me just make some progress. The second reason I find this depressing is that this rests on a false premise—there is no such thing as free car parking. The money has to come from somewhere, and it currently comes from other services—from social services and from education. The cost of providing a so-called free car parking space, according to the Department for Transport, is between £300 and £500 a year for one space. It’s not free; it’s paid for. In Carmarthenshire—I looked at their budget for 2016-17, and that shows a revenue expenditure allocation of £1.9 million for car parks, alongside an income of almost £3.2 million a year for car parks. In one year. So, forgoing that income and meeting the cost of car parking would, potentially, amount to some £5 million in Carmarthenshire alone. And it’ll create more demand. We can only look at hospital car parking, since we’ve introduced free car parking there. The car parks are rammed, and in almost every car park we have demand for extra car parking space, at a cost of between £300 and £500 a year.

So, not only are you not sticking to your words on tackling climate change, not only are you not doing what you said you’d do in Carmarthenshire, but you’re taking money away from vital services to subsidise car owners, and also creating more demand for that.

Bear in mind that a quarter of all households don’t have a car. Now, the evidence on car parking regenerating town centres is, at best, weak. It’s based on shopkeepers thinking that most of their customers come by car, which is not true. The most recent survey in Bristol town centre showed that just a fifth of shoppers travelled by car. Retailers tend to overestimate the importance of car-borne trade by almost 100 per cent. Shoppers, when they’re asked, would much rather see a better pedestrian environment, wider pavements and pedestrianisation rather than free car parking. In fact, Living Streets, in their report ‘The pedestrian pound’, showed that making places better for walking could boost trade by 40 per cent—

Would you take an intervention?

I’ll take one from Caroline, yes.

Thank you very much—

UKIP, but not Plaid.

Sorry?

They were in my eyeline.

Anyway, I was going to say, as a former business owner, I can assure you that the car parking—that customers came and told me it was essential to them, because they could go somewhere else where there was parking out of town, and that it did make a significant impact, especially when you’ve got traffic wardens chasing you for being two minutes over your time. So, it does have a significant impact.

Well, again, this is policy making by anecdote, and the evidence doesn’t bear that out.

Now, Sian Gwenllian said that we need to level the playing field with out-of-town developments. So, let’s do that; let’s think outside the box. Rather than saying, ‘Let’s increase the subsidy for in-town car parking’, let’s put the burden on the multinational companies that have been developing out-of-town sites for the last 20 years and the tax-free car parking that they have. So, we’re robbing scarce public resources to pay for car parking. Let’s all come together and think outside the box. We have the powers to do it. Let’s encourage the Welsh Government to look at how it can increase a tariff on out-of-town shopping centres. That, Simon Thomas, would tackle climate change, which Plaid Cymru were telling us just yesterday they want to do. So, let’s look at using those powers—

Right. Are you coming to a conclusion?

I am. I did take an intervention, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Yes, well, I’ve allowed for that as well.

I’m grateful for your lenience.

I’ve allowed for your intervention. Just come to a conclusion, please.

If I can just finish my sentence, I will. [Assembly Members: ‘Oh.’] Let’s think imaginatively and let’s put the burden on corporate companies, not on scarce and hard-pushed taxpayers.

The state of many of our high streets is a sad sight to see. Diverse and distinctive high streets that once bustled with activity have given way to gambling establishments, chain pubs, fast food or charity shops, or, otherwise, are standing empty. In some cases, you can almost see the tumbleweed rolling down the middle of the high street. The lifeblood of the high street is footfall and convenience. Pedestrianisation of high streets sounds like a nice idea, but it drives passing trade off the high street. People have busy lives and don’t have the time to pay and display and then keep an eye on the time in case they overrun and get a fine.

To compound matters, local authorities continue to allow supermarkets to be built just off the high street, sometimes adjacent to new off-high-street car parks, sucking the regular custom away from the high streets. Who can blame customers, though, for going to the supermarket, which won’t make them pay for parking or fine them if they take a bit too much time spending money in their store? A combination of pedestrianisation, car park charges and supermarkets has effectively starved local high streets of customers.

Member of the Senedd:

Will you give way?

No. Against this backdrop, business rates are hammering the final nail into the coffin of our high streets. Calculated by crude means, based on nominal value, high street shops are penalised for their location. Shopkeepers may be paying their business rates, but too often this will be at the cost of falling behind with their rent or not recruiting staff.

Local authorities and the Welsh Government have it within their gift to help the high street. They must stop bleeding shopkeepers dry through business rates. They must provide the funds and impetus to provide free car parking adjacent to the high street, and short-term parking on the high streets themselves. Local authorities must stop penalising shoppers for wanting to spend money on the high street. Shopkeepers are already battling fierce competition from the internet and big supermarkets. They need all the help they can get from local authorities and Government to survive.

I support this motion. Our high streets were once the hubs of our communities, and need to be once again. Thank you.

God, these Labour AMs. Encourage the Government.

Just get on with it, please.

Put pressure on the Government. It’s your Government. You have group meetings with them, surely. God.

Anyway, empty units: clearly a problem in towns. It’s also a problem in this capital city. If you go down high streets, there’s empty unit after empty unit. It’s a huge problem. We need a strategy; we need local economic development zones, for example, and help with marketing; we need upgraded shop fronts, upgraded buildings, and free parking as well, as the motion states. Maybe help with public transport as well. Reducing business rates would be good, and really dealing with extortionate rents that local businesspeople simply cannot afford. These kinds of initiatives are totally, totally affordable, unless you have a Government that wastes £1 million on selling two units that they could have used as business incubator centres for that particular town, and they didn’t. They threw away £1 million. They threw away £40 million, as we said earlier, with the Lisvane land deal, and another £7.25 million in Rhoose. When you add all these figures up, a lot of this money could be used to regenerate our town centres economically. But we haven’t got a Government that is able to do that. Wales deserves a lot better.

Thank you. I call the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond to this debate today. Our town and city centres face complex challenges that we recognise—the difficulties they face remaining relevant and competitive, as many Members have alluded to today. The circumstances in which they operate are continually changing, and they face challenges from both economic circumstances and the wide range of choice available to consumers, including online shopping, as Members also mentioned.

The Welsh Government is supporting local authorities and others in their efforts to adapt, to evolve and to meet the challenges that they face. Across our policies and programmes, we have supported our towns and cities to diversify and become places to live, to shop, to work and to socialise. Through Vibrant and Viable Places, the Welsh Government has invested £110 million in 11 towns and city areas, creating jobs, supporting people into work, and leveraging £300 million in additional investment. The programme has also been instrumental in delivering new housing. A recent success story is the rise in business improvement districts: there are now 12 established BIDs in Wales, and we’ve also supported 20 town-centre partnerships. As this shows, the Welsh Government does recognise the importance of vibrant and diverse high streets that support local enterprise.

Whilst there is a mixed picture in different areas, we recognise the current national position with regard to vacancy rates, and that some areas have lost their community spaces or services as a result of low footfall. I did listen to the comments by Mark Reckless earlier on regarding two particular areas. I do agree with him, actually; there are some vibrant communities, particularly in Abergavenny, in the constituency of Nick Ramsay, and that’s something that we should celebrate. We should congratulate the town centres and the people who use those town centres on the way they’ve adapted the opportunities there. It has been a very difficult few years for some areas to get back onto their feet, following the economic turndown and the ongoing challenges they face. We have a £20 million town centre loan scheme, for example, aimed at bringing empty premises back into use and giving community assets a new lease of life.

The point in the motion on car parking charges is an interesting idea. Last year, a report commissioned by the Welsh Government assessed the impact of car parking charges in relation to footfall. The full report is available on the website, and the picture is complex. As our Member makes clear, we would welcome further exploration of it by the Assembly and its committees. We cannot, however, Deputy Presiding Officer, accept any attempt to commit Government to particular items of expenditure ahead of any budget process, as Members will be aware.

At the same time, we cannot support the Conservative amendment’s attempt to remove the idea from the motion. We’re not opposed to the broader strategic approach to the problem facing the high street, as outlined in the Tory amendment. A whole-Government approach to regeneration is a fundamental part of our current framework. Sadly, the effect of amendment 1 is to delete all reference to car parking, and therefore we cannot support it today. This Government has consistently shown that we recognise the importance of high-street businesses, and I’m happy to support amendment 3.

Finally, I’d like to emphasise that the future of our town centres and city centres is an important one to this Government. The contribution from Lee Waters in regard to the opportunities of business rates is something that I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary will take very seriously in terms of the opportunities to explore how we can share the benefits of all types of shopping to create resilient communities and resilient shopping centres. I’m grateful to the Member—

Will the Minister give way?

I will do.

Just on that point, and trying to look for common ground between ourselves on this matter, the fact is that out-of-town parking developments don’t pay business rates on their huge free parking. We have to restore some of that balance in order to revive our town centres. Yes, short-term free parking in town centres can be part of that, but we also need to address those out-of-town parking stores. So, if he looks at business rates, surely we should be charging them for the massive free parking they have.

I think it is common ground, and that’s exactly what Lee did say, I think. Your point is well made and reiterated by the Member. Can I say that I’m not opposed to the collective responsibility of trying to rebuild our communities and our town centres? All of these things should feed into the consideration by the Minister responsible for business rates over the next few weeks.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to respond to colleagues in the debate today. I will pick up the points that Mr McEvoy raised in this. It was a very angry contribution this afternoon. I may just point him to the point when he was deputy leader of the council here in Cardiff: he never referred to or did any of those things in that particular role in his duties. But I’m very happy to continue the debate with Members across the Chamber.

Thank you. I call on Sian Gwenllian to reply to the debate. Sian.

Thank you very much, and thank you for a lively discussion this afternoon. The Conservatives have conveyed their support for the motion, but I won’t accept amendment 1 because it does broaden the area of work too broadly, and, unfortunately, the current Government loses focus too often, and I wouldn’t want them to do that on this issue.

You mentioned high-street pharmacies, and, yes, I agree that those are important, and it’s important to have other services on the high street along with shops. I recognise that our town centres are changing, of course, and we have to look all the time for new ways of helping and regenerating town centres. The solution is complex, therefore we are proposing quite a simple scheme of creating a fund—not with millions of pounds in it, but a small fund that would allow local councils to make applications for funding in order to experiment with this idea. Fine, if it doesn’t work after a few years, then we can get rid of the idea. This Government isn’t very good at getting rid of schemes that don’t work, but I would suggest that, in this case, we have to try, and if it doesn’t work, then, well, there we go—we’ve tried it.

As regards the point—[Interruption.] I don’t have much time. On the point about climate change and using cars, and encouraging car use, I do agree with you. I sympathise with that view, but in the area where I live, the car is a vital part of day-to-day life. You try to catch a public bus or go by bike from Deiniolen, Nebo or Nantlle down to the town centres—it’s nearly impossible. There is one bus a day, and have you seen the hills in my area? It’s fine for a fit person to ride a bike, but we are talking about many people who are not in that position. So, I do agree, but to be realistic, the car is part of our rural life, certainly.

I also agree about the need to pressure that supermarkets to contribute, perhaps, in terms of this problem. I would be very pleased if the Welsh Government were to put pressure on Tesco, Morrisons and these other big companies to look seriously at how they can help to enliven our town centres.

This is part of a package of measures—a small part of it. We need a lot of other things to happen as well. This would have a relatively small cost, as a pilot scheme, and if it doesn’t work, then we wouldn’t carry on with it. But what about trying it out? We need fresh ideas in this place, and this is one of them. So, let us try it, please.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting on this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.