Chris Brook-Carter, chief executive of charity Retail Trust, has responded to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget.
Retail is the largest employer outside of the public sector so a healthy and happy retail workforce is important for our industry and for the country’s communities and high streets and its GDP.
Yet right now, thousands of shop workers are contacting the Retail Trust to say they’re now being forced to consider leaving a job they love and often have worked in for many years because they no longer feel safe there. We therefore welcome with open arms the new funding being announced to crack down on retail crime and provide more training to police officers to help better tackle this issue.
We’re also supportive of the government’s commitment to extend business rates relief and introduce permanent and lower rates from 2026 if it can help to give retailers more confidence to plan for the future to ease much of the uncertainty and insecurity currently facing everyone working in the industry.
Increases to the national minimum wage and national living wage will also support many people across the retail sector by giving them the pay raise they deserve.
And we fully agree with the Chancellor when she says that ‘healthy businesses depend on a healthy NHS’, and hope that new NHS funding will help address the declining levels of mental health we are seeing amongst the retail workers the Retail Trust supports, particularly the sector’s youngest workers who we’ve found are most likely to be taking time off or working whilst unwell.
However, while we recognise that the need to raise more money to fund these vital NHS services comes with some difficult decisions, we echo the concerns from some in the retail sector about the long-term impact of increased National Insurance Contributions on both employers and their staff.
Chris Brook-Carter, chief executive, Retail Trust
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