Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-03-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of why the UK retail sector is predicted by the British Retail Consortium to lose up to 900,000 jobs in the next decade.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

• The Government recognises the great contribution the retail industry makes to the economy, to employment and to communities. We are in regular touch with the British Retail Consortium and major retailers on a wide range of policy issues, including those raised in the report.

• The report shows that the retail sector is going through a period of major adjustment as it is responds to developments such as changing demography and consumer preferences, and automation and digital technology.

• Government has supported business, including retailers by taking action to help employers and workers to improve productivity, including raising the Annual Investment Allowance to £200,000 to its highest ever permanent level, reducing national insurance contributions for small firms, going further by cutting corporation tax to 18% in 2020 for all companies, and significantly increasing investment in apprenticeships.

• At the same time, the government is making sure workers in Britain get a pay rise by introducing the National Living Wage from April this year. Now is the right time to do this as we are seeing record employment rates and more than 2 million jobs created since 2010. And taking into account the National Living Wage the independent Office of Budget Responsibility expects employment to rise by a further 1.1 million by 2020.