Here we are in the middle of another crisis, and it’s hard to even remember which is newest considering the upheavals of the past few years – is it Covid, Putin’s war, runaway inflation and currency collapse – or perhaps imminent asteroids?
But when the Minister of State for Local Government, Faith and Communities – also Minister for London – Paul Scully, rang the doorbell at Asian Trader Towers a few weeks ago (just before the vote that made Liz Truss Prime Minister), and joined us for a chat over a cup of tea, it seemed as if life was for a moment briefly, welcomely, back to normal.
Scully, needless to say, is a refreshingly normal bloke – running small businesses for over twenty years in the southern suburbs of the capital, until he was made the MP for his Sutton and Cheam constituency in May 2015. You can immediately tell that he gets along with people and knows his way around Parliament. In fact, Scully was a confidant of both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in the run-off for the leadership – unsurprising, perhaps, as he was made Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party three years ago.
And in contrast to some other ministers, he arrives alone, without assistants and PR people in tow – having crossed the river and “had a nice stroll”. There’s no “Don’t ask about this” or “Such and such is off limits” from Scully. I simply explain that Asian Trader does not practice “gotcha” journalism, and off we go.
But which crisis should we talk about first? How about the pandemic and the economic troubles that retailers are experiencing as a result?
Ghost town
“I was promoted into the job a month before lockdown,” Scully says, “so it's pretty well all I’ve known within that role. It was a ghost town in the middle of London. What you saw was something like 600 high streets dotted around Greater London. Some of them weren't suffering as badly as the central activity zone in the West End, the City, Canary Wharf, those kinds of area.”
He sees things getting back to normal now despite the ongoing issues over travel and supply chains, even though inflation is forcing people to cut back on spending, and although London’s recovery might be behind other areas of the UK.
“We knew that London was going to probably bounce back later than everywhere else – unusually, because when you have a recession or downturn London is usually the first place to bounce back.”
The pandemic was different, notably in the way that international commerce and travel was interrupted – a big change that might in certain ways prove permanent.
“First of all, it’s getting workers back into the office as best we can,” he explains. “Students, domestic travellers – international travellers are the one that's still lagging, although there's lots more languages being spoken on the streets. I walked down here from Westminster, and for the first time there were plenty of people visiting Parliament Square, but we need them to be spending as well. That's the key to getting that middle-of-London kick started again.”
I say that the pandemic has knocked the stuffing out of London's finances, and that as usual ordinary people are suffering, with bus routes lined up for the chop, hospitals straining under the back log, and so on.
"Transport for London is suffering,” admits Scully, “and the government has just agreed the latest deal to try to keep London moving. They’ve put about £6 billion overall into TfL. That's roughly the same as has been lost. So, we want to keep that long-term view going. It's up to the mayor now, to make sure he can have a future sustainable financial position for TfL to rebuild again.”
Will that end the seemingly endless industrial action that’s making everybody’s lives a misery – and deterring many from getting back to the commute?
“What we are putting in place is the idea of having minimum service levels during strike action, to try and push down that wildcat militant union action. People should be able to be members of a union and should be able to raise points of dispute and concern as employees, but there comes a point where you get union activists trying to hold the population to ransom to make political points.”
Paul (L) Scully with Sutton's Indian community
They say they need a pay rise because of inflation – I say, join the club. And now with the energy crisis it seems as if anybody could go bust quickly, after two years of going bust slowly.
“I was Minister for Small Business for two and a half years,” says Scully, “and I ran small businesses, so I know what it's like to go without – so that I could pay my staff and my bills – and I think that gives you a different perspective on politics, and especially in that kind of role.
"We put £408 billion of support into the economy to protect jobs, businesses and livelihoods. Insolvencies were at a 40-year low at points through the pandemic, which meant that businesses that would otherwise have failed actually got protected.”
But not permanently.
“There was always going to be an element of some insolvencies,” replies Scully, “but for good businesses that that are still very viable and then get hit by energy bills, it's a real tough one,” he admits.
Fuel for thought
Scully outlined the aid to help with energy bills that Rishi Sunak was planning, but which has been superseded by the price caps announced soon after Truss entered office – to the relief of many but to the detriment of the gilts market and the exchange rate (at the time of writing).
I point out that better than having an emergency relief plan would be to have an actual energy policy, which British governments of all persuasions have been avoiding for decades now, so that the UK – which could be almost self-sufficient in oil, gas, coal and a decent nuclear programme – is now dependent upon windmills and unicorns; perhaps a little harsh as an upsum, but not too far from reality.
“Yeah, you're absolutely right,” he disarmingly agrees. “It's really important that we can look at the short term, but energy is going to remain a problem if we don't solve it. And the reason that prices are high is quite simple in macro terms: there's a lot of people wanting energy, demand is high. There's not enough barrels of oil, there's not enough gas being pumped out. And renewables are not at a point where there's enough of them to take the place of oil and gas and nuclear.
“So we've got to increase supply, and we can do more domestically. One of the last things I did as business minister, was give planning permission for Sizewell C, the new nuclear power station, and that's now back to government to make the financial decision. It’s got planning permission now and we need to start building.”
Paul Scully at Neasden Temple
Is it true that policy has been hamstrung by nimby-ism and climate ideologues who discount the economic effects of their green utopianism?
“You do get pushback from a lot of zealots, shall we say, who really want Net Zero to be now, although it’s impossible just to switch off, which is unrealistic. It's been quite galling when you look back at some of the videos that have emerged recently of Nick Clegg at the beginning of a coalition in 2010 when he was saying, ‘No, we don't want to have nuclear as part of the mix because it doesn't come on stream for ages, until 2021 or 2022’!”
He laughs remorsefully: “We'd have been so thankful to have that coming on stream now, exactly as we need it. Someone said, there are two good times to build a nuclear power station. The best was 20 years ago and the second-best time is now.”
Scully states that not being realistic about the country’s energy needs "cuts our nose off to spite our face” and that the big thing Liz Truss has been talking about is to get an energy policy and boost domestic production.
This is good and an encouraging mid- to long-term plan. But to rehearse the anxieties of our readers – independent retailers across the nation, who are small business owners without depthless pools of capital on which to draw for sustenance – it seems right now to be a hopeless situation, with sky-rocketing bills and ever-narrower margins.
Real, potentially fatal problems are staring them in the face and they're already starting to talk about half-day opening or limited hours, shedding staff. Our readers don't have the option of a ceiling on payments like domestic users have. Secondly, they can't turn the chillers off as stock will go bad. They've got to keep them on all the time.
"At the moment, everyone's just looking at surviving," says Scully. “They're just trying to minimise cash burn and profit is a long way away for a lot of people. So, while they're working hard for their business, they don't have that scope to lift their head up and work on their business. And that was that's always a difficult dynamic for small business owners, but it's particularly pertinent now.”
In solid Conservative tradition Scully cleaves to supply-side solutions:
“What we've got to do first of all is cut the cost of doing business, we've got to make sure that we reward people that are taking those risks. Otherwise, why don't they just pack up and go and work for a big grocer, rather than forever have that heartache of being a single trader?”
Open for business
Encouraging business activity, he says, is the essence of what he knows that Truss has in mind as her economic plan – to cut taxes and get the government middleman out of the way.
“So, let's make it worth their while. Let's reignite that opportunity, that entrepreneurship, but also make it easier for them to trade. Make it so it's not all just about cost. Is there something other we can do with local authorities, for example to make parking easier?”
Yes, and do something about business rates?
“I think there's one more thing that we can do that we should be doing,” he says, "and although I can't say it's government policy now, what I can say is that having spoken to Liz Truss specifically about it, she's very keen to look again at business rates.
“From my point of view and as a personal point of view, I would scrap them. I think they were a 20th century tax that have had their day, because you don't measure the success of a business on their square footage anymore. “
So what’s stopping you?
"Frankly, I don't know what you’d put in its place. And that's the key thing, because the resistance from Treasury is that business rates raise £26 billion pounds, and it's really easy for them to collect.”
“I think that over probably the last 20 years is that there's been a sort of Treasury orthodoxy that's tried to take the reward out of taking risk,” says Scully, encouragingly. That is hopefully set to change.
“Having come from small business, I'm a poacher turned gamekeeper. I believe in Ronnie Reagan’s mantra about the nine most-feared words in the English language: ‘I'm from the government and I'm here to help’.”
Paul Scully (L) at MCWAS mosque, Carshalton
In fine British fashion Scully (whose father immigrated here from what was then Burma) deploys a cricketing metaphor: government should roll the pitch for business, and then the businesspeople should crack on and develop their ideas.
“They know how to gain custom; they know how to give people good experiences, give people good service, whatever it is. Government shouldn't be involved in that kind of thing.
Be an umpire standing to the side, wrapped in the jumpers …
“Exactly, or a groundsman. Roll the pitch and make sure it’ll take a spin at a good fast pace.”
Going postal
This is getting to be fun, but there is a serious issue we need to address, and that is the Post Office scandal. Obviously, Scully was not there when the scandal took place, or when it began to be exposed, but he was (as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets) when it came to launching enquiries into who was responsible and deciding on a course of punishment and compensation.
I explain that at Asian Trader we are particularly interested because there was a disproportionate number of Asians victimised. Was there an element of covert racism involved – maybe English wasn't their first language; maybe this made some afraid to stand up for themselves as strongly as they should have? Did that make them an easier target for prosecution and encourage the deflection of blame from those responsible for the real fraud?
“First of all,” Scully says, “it was the biggest scandal in British court history. The size and scale of it is absolutely horrendous. It's not about being a government minister or an MP, it's impossible to be a human being and look at it – the scale of it and the horror stories that we've got, whether it’s Seema Misra, Christopher Head, or anyone else who went through such horrendous circumstances – and not be moved.
“But I'm not sure whether you can boil it down to the fact that they're Asian,” he replies, because the Asians are feisty and entrepreneurial, having come halfway around the world to start a new life – “like my father when he came from Burma at the age of 18” – and can stand up for themselves.
Former subpostmasters celebrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, on April 23, 2021, following a court ruling clearing subpostmasters of convictions for theft and false accounting. (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
“Regarding the Post Office, I set up the statutory inquiry, which is going through at the moment. [Former High Court judge] Sir Wynn Williams is doing it, and as far as I know, is doing a good job.
“I don't really want to go too far in what I say, so that he can have the space to do what he needs to do. It wouldn't be independent if I'm commentating too much. However, what I would say about the justice is that clearly these wronged people, and existing postmasters, and the Post Office itself, can't move on until there are real answers – who did what, who knew what, who's going to take the rap for it? ”
He says we have to make sure nothing like it ever happens again: “We've put people in prison who have done nothing wrong, like Tracy Felstead, who saw someone hanged in prison when she was only 19, and she got PTSD. And she's having to now tell that story again, to her children. And relive all that experience.
“First of all,” he continues with some passion, “compensation isn't going to fully compensate her for that. I've always said, as well, that there's only so many ‘fine words’ I and my successor, Jane Hunt can say. It’s action to compensate them properly that counts.”
Scully points out that all of the original 555 persecuted postmasters and postmistresses at one time believed individually that they were the only people the Post Office was going after – not realising there were another 554 people around the country going suffering the same obscene ordeal. The Post Office, of course, had declined to inform them – removing a major possible line of defence against the accusations: if so many were suddenly involved, it was possibly (even obviously) a fault with the new Horizon software.
“And these people not only lost their businesses but often thought they were going mad, not understanding how they were getting the accounts so wrong,” says Scully, visibly animated. “I'm really delighted that one of the last things I did was at least to get the money and undertaking from the Treasury, and the process started, to give them an interim payment.”
Scully says he regrets he is no longer part of that process for delivering justice to the wronged, “I'm sorry I wasn't there to finish the job, but I’ll be checking in to make sure it does get finished.”
Let Post Office and Fujitsu take that as a warning.
Onward!
I ask Scully what his advice is for the new PM given their scope for action, (Truss has since resigned, but this could be well applicable for her successor, with the debt we've got, the economic conditions, the current international pressures...)
“There would be two overall general things. First of all, communicate well. Make sure people know exactly what we are doing. The second thing is to deliver – just absolutely to deliver. Trust in politicians has gone down hugely because we've had a really torrid year of story after story that's all been based around Westminster. The Conservatives made a lot of promises in 2019, and we've had two and a half years that haven't been wasted. But we've had to be really committed on COVID and now the war. That leaves us two and a half years of really compacted time now to be able to deliver our manifesto and those promises made back in 2019.
“That means we've got to be a government in a hurry. And in order to do that, we've got to learn the lessons of COVID – that you can make quick decisions in government. It’s no good if voters just say, ‘You've done nothing for me for the last two years.’ So we've got to act, act, act.”
And with that, Scully sets off back towards Waterloo Bridge.
Retail trade union Usdaw today (23) called on the shopping public to show respect for shop workers, stating that the busy pre-Christmas shopping period leaves retail workers exhausted and in need of a proper break.
Paddy Lillis – Usdaw General Secretary says, “By the time retail workers get to Christmas Eve, they will have been through a very busy run-up to Christmas. Our members tell us that incidents of verbal abuse are much worse in December and through to the New Year, when shops are busy, customers are stressed and things can boil over.
"That is why we asked customers to ‘keep your cool’ and respect shop workers, to make the Christmas shopping experience better for everyone.
“It is shocking that seven in ten of our members working in retail stores are suffering abuse from customers, with far too many experiencing threats and violence. Over half of shop workers have faced incidents triggered by customers being frustrated with stock shortages, lack of staff or problems with self-service checkouts.
"All of these issues are largely outside the control of the staff who are bearing the brunt of shoppers’ anger.
“Too many retail workers do not get a decent break over the Christmas and New Year period. They arrive home shattered and have to spend time on Christmas Day getting ready for work the next day, which is why 97 per cent want shops to shut on Boxing Day.
"98 per cent of our Scottish members want stores to close on New Year’s Day. While Usdaw has successfully secured the closure of large stores on Christmas Day, the rest of the holiday season is pretty much normal trading days for many.
“For those retailers who do open, we have negotiated national agreements for shops to be staffed with genuine volunteers only, and our workplace reps are supporting members to help make sure that happens at store level.
"We also send our appreciation to those workers behind the shopfront who have to work on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, not least in distribution, food and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
“Our message to customers is have a great Christmas and a happy New Year. Please appreciate all those who have to work over the festive period. If you must shop on Boxing Day or New Year’s Day, please treat the staff with respect and understand they would most likely rather have the time off.”
Grocers must focus on their price positioning to remain competitive as food and grocery spending in UK convenience stores is projected to outpace the hypermarkets, supermarkets, and discounters channel.
According to GlobalData, food and grocery spending in convenience stores is projected to reach £43.2 billion by 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.0 per cent between 2024 and 2028.
Between 2023 and 2024, the traditional big four grocers, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, and Morrisons, collectively added 800 new convenience stores to their portfolios, with ASDA and Morrisons leading the growth with acquisitions. This rapid expansion underscores increasing competition in the convenience market.
After successfully focusing on price in large format stores to appeal to consumers during the cost-of-living crisis, grocers must shift their focus on agile pricing to convenience locations.
Sainsbury’s and Tesco are notable examples within convenience, with Sainsbury's recently introducing Aldi price matching in its Local stores and Tesco announcing price reductions on over 200 products in its Express stores.
Aliyah Siddika, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, comments, “This replication of price focus from larger format stores to grocers’ expanding their convenience offer will encourage consumers to impulse buy due to increased affordability.
"The shift in UK consumer behaviour towards frequent top-up shopping has also created substantial growth potential in the convenience market.”
Before the pandemic, 81.6 per cent of UK consumers stated they would visit a grocer on the way home from work, and 78.4 per cent reported the same now.
Budget limitations have primarily driven this change, followed by the rise of hybrid working. Pre-pandemic, consumers working in the office full-time had less time to cook dinner after work.
However, with the shift to hybrid work models, consumers now go into the office a few times a week and are more likely to have the time to prepare meals ahead of the days they are in the office to save money.
Convenience retailers should promote low prices on their fakeaway options to entice consumers to visit on their way home from work for an affordable yet indulgent meal.
Siddika concludes,“When offering deeper price cuts in convenience formats, grocers must target price promotions towards items that consumers are more inclined to purchase during the workweek. Such as food-to-go ranges, ready meals, quick dinners, and treats to capture spending from commuters."
The upcoming “grocery tax” could hit hard-pressed Britons in the pocket, adding up to £56 annually to household shopping bills and costing families as much as £1.4 billion a year, state reports on Sunday (22) citing a recent analysis.
The scheme, known as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), imposes a levy on retailers and manufacturers for the cost of collecting and disposing of packaging waste, currently funded via council tax.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Friday (20) published a series of “base fees” to indicate how much food manufacturers and retailers will be charged under the scheme when it starts next autumn.
The highest fee of £485 a tonne will be charged for plastic packaging followed by “fibre-based composite” at £455 a tonne. The levy for paper or board packaging is £215 a tonne while materials such as bamboo or hemp will be charged at £280 a tonne.
The government’s impact assessment estimates the policy will cost the industry £1.4 billion a year and will drive up prices by between £28 and £56 a year for the average household, adding 0.07 per cent to inflation as retailers pass on most of the costs to shoppers.
However, the British Retail Consortium believes the levy, officially known as the “extended producer responsibility”, will cost about £2 billion a year. If all of this were added to food bills it would drive up the average household cost by £70 a year.
The scheme is expected to come into effect shortly, coinciding with rise in employers’ national insurance contributions and the increase in the minimum wage.
The measure, intended to hit the Government’s net-zero targets, has drawn criticism for inflating food prices and creating new red tape for businesses. Critics warn the measure will increase food costs for families while creating additional bureaucracy for businesses.
In a letter sent to Chancellor Rachel Reeves last month, the bosses of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda, Lidl and Aldi implored her to delay the levy.
The letter said: “For any retailer, large or small, it will not be possible to absorb such significant cost increases over such a short timescale.
"The effect will be to increase inflation, slow pay growth, cause shop closures, and reduce jobs, especially at the entry level. This will impact high streets and customers right across the country.
“We are already starting to take difficult decisions in our businesses and this will be true across the whole industry and our supply chain.”
The levy was originally conceived by Michael Gove during his time as environment secretary but, after a backlash from Tory MPs, it was put on hold.
Labour has revived the scheme since coming to power. Secondary legislation passed this month will bring the scheme into legal force on January 1, 2025, with charges due to be rolled out later that year.
Local authorities, which will receive the funds from the levy, are under no obligation to reduce council tax rates once relieved of the costs of waste collection.
Ashton Primary School in Preston has teamed up with SPAR during the season of goodwill to donate delicious food to the city’s Foxton Centre.
The school’s Year 3 class enjoyed a cookery session baking pear and chocolate crumbles to take down to the Foxton Homeless Day Centre as a pre-Christmas treat for people who access its services.
Ingredients for the crumbles were supplied by James Hall & Co. Ltd and the children also received SPAR recipe cards to recreate the recipe at home with nutritional guidance from the University of Central Lancashire’s Dietetics department.
It is the second time that Ashton Primary School and SPAR through James Hall & Co. Ltd have collaborated on a project after a Pumpkin and Carrot Soup cookery session in October.
Norman Payne, Year 3 teacher and Deputy Headteacher at Ashton Primary School, said: “This has been a heartwarming project to be part of during the festive season. Learning how to cook is a valuable life skill and I know the children enjoyed the sessions.
“We are thankful to SPAR for their support with supplying the ingredients and the recipe cards, and it was lovely to be able to visit the centre which does a wonderful job of supporting homeless people in the city.”
Wilf Whittle, Trading Controller at James Hall & Co. Ltd, said: “After the Halloween collaboration with Ashton Primary School, it was a lovely idea to do something a bit more indulgent around Christmas while still utilising fresh and seasonal products with the pears.
“SPAR is a community retailer and we are very happy to support initiatives like this that give something back, particularly when there is an educational element woven into the project.”
James Hall & Co. Ltd is a fifth-generation family business which serves a network of independent SPAR retailers and company-owned SPAR stores across Northern England six days a week from its base at Bowland View in Preston.
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(Photo credit should read Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images)
Cadbury’s has not been granted a royal warrant for the first time in 170 years after it got dropped from King Charles’s list of warrants.
Queen Victoria first awarded Cadbury with the title in 1854 which was then repeated by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1955 who was a huge lover of the chocolate.
Following the decision, the look of Cadbury products is expected to be undergoing a significant change
Cadbury told The Sun, "Yes, practically this means that we will remove the Royal Arms from all of our packaging.
"However to be clear, there will be no change to the iconic Cadbury purple which is not by Royal appointment. Cadbury purple has been used for Cadbury chocolate products for more than a century and is synonymous with the brand, this won’t change."
The reason for sudden the removal of the royal title is not known but Cadbury is not the only company to lose such an endorsement.
Another big brand missing from the list is Unilever, which manufactures goods including Marmite, Magnum ice-cream bars and Pot Noodles.
Apart from Cadbury's and Unilever, 100 other companies had their title removed by the Monarch. Luxury chocolate maker Charbonnel et Walker Ltd has also been bumped from the list since the last under Queen Elizabeth II’s name in April 2023.
Those who have lost their warrants were told of the decision by letter, but not informed of the reason.
They have 12 months to remove any royal warrant-associated branding from their items.
The King released the list of the 400 companies that received his royal warrant this year, including includes 386 companies previously holding warrants bestowed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
These range from the official 'suppliers of Martini Vermouth', Bacardi-Martini, to Command Pest Control Ltd, Dunelm for soft furnishings, Foodspeed for milk, Kellogg's for cereals, florist Lottie Longman, and McIlhenny as the official supplier of Tabasco hot sauce.
Each warrant is granted for up to five years at a time. The king first issued warrants in 1980, when he was Prince of Wales.
Some firms gained warrants for the first time, including those connected with Queen Camilla. They include hairdresser Jo Hansford and Wartski jewellers. The latter made the king and queen’s wedding rings when they got married in April 2005.