The increase in the national minimum wage will be announced by the government this autumn and will come on top of a 1.25% increase in NI contributions paid by both employees and employers.

For an employee earning an annual salary of £20,000, the employer and employee will each pay an additional £130 a year in contributions.

The increase in the national minimum wage will also cause an increase in pension contributions being paid.

NFRN National President Stuart Reddish said: “While the government is taking steps to solve major problems in our health and social care, a large part of the burden of these changes will hit already hard pressed retailers.

“The cumulative effect of the NI changes, minimum wage increase and resultant increases in pension contributions will push more local businesses towards not being financially viable. Every store put out of business will have a detrimental effect on their local communities.

“We can only hope that the government realises the dangers for the independent retail sector and takes the opportunity to relieve at least some of the burden on store owners, as part of the business rates review this autumn.”

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The Federation of Independent Retailers (NFRN) has welcomed a report by the Home Affairs Committee calling for a much stronger police response and a new standalone offence to tackle violence and abuse towards shop workers.

In its report published today, the Committee says attacks on retailers and their staff has become endemic and that the policing response is failing to match the scale of the problem.

NFRN National President Stuart Reddish said: “The Home Affairs Committee’s report merely reiterates what we have been telling the government repeatedly for years.

“Incidents of verbal abuse and physical attacks have become a daily occurrence for millions of shop workers and have increased dramatically during the Covid pandemic.

Frontline workers

“Other frontline workers, such as the emergency services and customs officers, are quite rightly given extra protection by the law in recognition of the service they provide to the public and the responsibility placed upon them.

“Shop workers are just as much in the firing line and deserve the same level of protection from the law and an appropriate response from the police.”

Mr Reddish has written to police and crime commissioners urging them to include tackling retail crime as a major part of their five-year plans, and to invite them to meet with NFRN members to hear for themselves the true scale of the problem.

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Yvette Cooper MP, said: “Everybody should be safe at work. Shop workers are the lifeblood of our local high streets and communities. During the Covid-19 pandemic, retail workers kept our communities going and they deserve our thanks and gratitude. It is even more shameful, then, that abuse and assaults against shopworkers went up during the pandemic, and it is completely unacceptable that these attacks have become so commonplace in our society.

Traumatic consequences

“Too often, the police have not taken these crimes seriously enough and workers have been left to deal with the traumatic consequences alone. Those who abuse and assault shop workers must not be allowed to reoffend with impunity. Policing leaders must step up and make this a priority for local forces – with more neighbourhood police, clear plans to identify repeat offenders, respond to incidents swiftly and better record and understand patterns of local crimes.”

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Mr McCabe, MP for Selly Oak, was re-appointed at a meeting last week. He has been chairman of the cross-party group since November 2018.

NFRN National President Stuart Reddish said: “Under Steve McCabe’s chairmanship, the APPG has made real progress in making the government more aware of the true impact that retail crime has on independent retailers and in the communities in which they serve.

“We are delighted that he has been re-elected as chairman and look forward to working closely with him to continue to push in parliament the concerns, not just of our members’, but of the whole independent sector on retail crime.”

Baroness Eaton and MPs Alex Norris and Peter Bottomley were appointed as vice chairs of the group, for which the NFRN is responsible for the secretariat.

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In its response to the Department for Health and Social Care as part of the consultation process, the NFRN says the proposed changes are both unfair and inconsistent.

For the new policy, local shops and supermarkets over 2,000 sq ft and with more than 50 employees will no longer be able to place HFSS products at store entrances, checkouts, end of aisles and designated queuing areas.

Symbol groups

However, the Government is proposing that the regulations should also apply to ‘symbol group’ retailers, which are independent retailers trading under brands such as Spar, Nisa and Costcutter. These stores are small businesses with owners that operate with a high degree of autonomy. They are not franchisees.

NFRN National President Stuart Reddish said: “The proposal to include symbol groups within the requirements of the policy is both unfair and inconsistent with current government policy toward retailers.

“By including independent retailers who have decided that they can best serve their local communities as part of a symbol group, while excluding those who trade under their own name, the government is creating a false division between symbol and non-symbol retailers, to the disadvantage of those retailers who have chosen to join a symbol group.

Treated differently

“A ridiculous situation will occur where two stores in similar locations, with similar levels of staffing and of similar size and product ranges, are treated differently solely on the basis of the sign above the door.”

The NFRN is also concerned about the timing of the new regulations.

Mr Reddish added: “Retailers have been through a difficult year, and the not inconsiderable expense of refitting stores to comply with the regulations would be extremely unwelcome as businesses try to look beyond the pandemic and lockdown.

“We also have concerns about the ability of retailers to make the necessary changes if the regulations are brought in too quickly. There is a limited amount of shop fitting capacity available, which could easily become swamped as a result of hasty implementation of these changes.

“The NFRN therefore calls on the government to delay implementation of any changes until April 2023 at the earliest.”

The post HFSS – High Fat, Salt and Sugar – promotion bans are unfair and inconsistent for smaller ‘symbol’ retailers first appeared on Neighbourhood Retailer.