We cannot allow organised crime to hollow out our high streets

High streets are more than places to shop. They are the beating heart of our towns – and when people look at them, they judge not just how their town is doing, but how they feel about the place they call home.

In my constituency of Halesowen, people care deeply about their high streets and want to see them thrive. We have much to celebrate: independent businesses such as Bella’s Beautiful Things in Halesowen, Betty Stitch-kit in Quarry Bank and Cradley Heath DIY in Cradley Heath. We also have volunteers who devote countless hours to making our town centres flourish, from Halesowen in Bloom to Cradley Heath and Old Hill in Bloom.

Yet alongside these success stories, there is a growing sense that something is going wrong.

As retail has faced increasing challenges, long-established shops have closed and new businesses have appeared in their place. Vape shops, mini-markets and barbers seem to spring up overnight. Most are perfectly legitimate businesses and should not be unfairly stigmatised. But there is mounting evidence that some are being used as fronts for money laundering, counterfeit goods and organised crime.

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has warned that in some areas as many as half of mini-markets and vape shops may have links to organised criminal networks.

My constituents did not need statistics to tell them there was a problem. In April, the BBC broadcast undercover footage from Cradley Heath and Dudley showing counterfeit goods and illegal drugs being sold openly from shops in the centre of our towns. A reporter was able to buy cannabis, cocaine and prescription drugs over the counter.

I was appalled.

The police have since taken action and made arrests, which is welcome. Yet my constituents continue to ask a simple question: why are shops that have been so publicly exposed for criminal activity still operating? It is a question to which I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer.

They also ask why Cradley Heath High Street – once a thriving local centre – now contains 12 mini-markets and vape shops, all supposedly competing with a major supermarket just across the road. Last year Birmingham was identified as the country’s leading hotspot for rogue businesses. Looking at what is happening across the Black Country, I fear we are facing the same blight.

Organised crime costs Britain an estimated £47 billion each year. That is money diverted away from legitimate businesses and public services and instead channelled into violence, people smuggling and other forms of criminality.

The local costs are just as severe. Honest traders see footfall decline as people avoid areas they no longer feel comfortable visiting. Parents worry about children being able to buy vapes or laughing gas underage. Residents fear for their safety as drug dealing and violence spill onto the streets around them. When crime takes hold of our high streets, communities feel it acutely because these places matter so much.

That is why I welcome the steps the Government has begun to take. The National Crime Agency’s Operation Machinize has already seen thousands of premises raided and hundreds of arrests. The Government’s £30 million investment in tougher enforcement, centred on a new High Street Organised Crime Unit, is another important step forward.

This challenge cannot be tackled by any one agency acting alone. The Home Office, Trading Standards, the NCA, HMRC, immigration enforcement and local police all have a role to play. Criminal networks exploit gaps between institutions; our response must ensure they have nowhere to hide.

But enforcement alone is not enough. We should also ask whether we can do more to prevent criminal enterprises from establishing themselves in the first place.

Other countries offer useful lessons. In the Netherlands, authorities can conduct integrity checks before granting licences and permits, refusing applications where there is a serious risk they could be used for criminal activity. That strikes me as common sense.

We should also look at Companies House, which investigators have described as vulnerable to abuse, and consider whether landlords should face greater accountability where they knowingly – or negligently – facilitate criminal activity.

Cradley Heath High Street used to be a thriving heart of our community. Seeing drug dealing exposed in broad daylight there was shocking, but it was also a warning.

The Government’s recent measures are a positive start, and I hope they will be focused on areas like the Black Country, which have become hotspots for this form of criminality. But there is more we can do: learning from international examples, tightening our systems and giving authorities the tools they need to act earlier.

Our high streets are the beating heart of our towns. We owe it to the honest businesses, volunteers and residents who care so deeply about them to make sure they remain places of pride – not playgrounds for organised crime.