Shoe repair boss puts the boot into Amazon
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to invest in the business then fine, but a lot of the time it’s not.
“There should be a law that says you can only borrow two or three times your profit. Here’s an idea – if your business has long-term debt then you have to pay more corporation tax than companies that don’t because they are reducing their corporation tax by paying interest, often to themselves.”
He has another suggestion: “If you employ an ex-offender, someone longterm unemployed, a veteran, a care leaver, or someone who is disabled, the employer should not pay national insurance for the first 12 months.”
He says it was in the Tory Party manifesto “but the Treasury keep blocking it”. The Timpson Group gave £262,000 to charity last year and spent nearly £700,000 rehabilitating
Sir John in 1985
SIR JOHN TIMPSON ON STRUGGLE THAT INSPIRED HIS BOOK
The firm now employs 4,700 people ex-offenders back into the workplace. And £358,000 from in-store collection tins went to the firm’s charity, the Alex Timpson Trust – named after James’s mother, who died in 2016 aged 66.
Sir John is semi-retired but has written a number of books. His latest, A Guide To Mental Health At Work, is a subject close to his heart. He said: “I’ve had my own problems with mental health. I get bouts of stress and depression. It started really big time in the 80s, when I was running the business. We had a bad spell. Sometimes I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I did but I’d get to the office and couldn’t get out of the car. You don’t ever feel you’re going to get better, you feel trapped.” It seems typical of the exemplary businessman to use the experience to help others.
I get bouts of stress and depression. It started in the 80s. We had a bad spell