RETAIL SECTOR IN CRISIS
SHOPWORKERS’ trade union Usdaw remains disappointed that the Government didn’t offer more help to a retail industry in crisis, provide a clear and coherent strategy to ‘save our shops’ or even offer to meet the union to discuss their Industrial Strategy For Retail.
Introducing the Westminster Hall debate on ‘Developing a retail strategy for the future’, Liz Twist MP (Labour, Blaydon) called on the Government to provide a vision for the future of retail and to meet with Usdaw to help develop that and incorporate the union’s Industrial Strategy For Retail.
Many MPs backed those calls and urged the Government to take urgent and substantial action to tackle the high street crisis, describing the current policy as little more than a ‘sticking plaster’.
We are grateful to MPs for their widespread support for our ‘Save Our Shops’ campaign and the Industrial Strategy For Retail that it promotes.
The Government has so far failed to tackle the ongoing crisis on our high streets and, while acknowledging there are challenges to be addressed, today they again missed the chance to make a substantial difference.
We need action, not just warm words.
Our high streets are in crisis, with jobs being lost due to shops closing, retailers folding and businesses engaging in significant restructuring ● to survive.
We need the Government to go much further to address the worries and concerns of shopworkers and our members.
Usdaw’s Retail Strategy should be a catalyst for a combined and concerted effort to tackle the growing retail crisis and help to save our shops.
It was very disappointing that the minister didn’t mention Usdaw once, let alone engage with our strategy. make reform of the current pension taxation rules a priority to avoid patient care deteriorating further.
The letters have been sent on the day that NHS performance figures reveal a staggering 70% increase in patients waiting on trolleys to be seen compared to June last year, and the A&E four-hour target worse than the wintertime.
Though pension taxes are just one part of the wider issues informing these figures, the BMA points out that doctors having to reduce their hours or retire from the NHS early will only exacerbate poor levels of patient care and reduced staffing levels.
With today’s figures also showing that over a million people are now on waiting lists for diagnostics tests such as MRI scans, and more than 43,000 of those have waited longer than six weeks, the next Prime Minister needs to act quickly to reverse this and to reform a taxation which is driving senior doctors out of the NHS.
In letters to the two Conservative leadership candidates, the chair of the BMA council, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, warns that the BMA is ‘deeply concerned about significant reductions in capacity within the NHS’ citing the ‘worrying evidence’ that pension taxation is having on the NHS.
Recognising the commitment made by Boris Johnson this week to tackle punitive pension taxation rules for public sector workers affected by the lifetime allowance, Dr Nagpaul writes: “We ask you to extend your commitment to reform the lifetime allowance to also address the perverse impact caused by the annual allowance and the tapered annual allowance should you become the next Prime Minister.”
In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the BMA also calls on the former Health Secretary to prioritise the pension issues to address the adverse impact on workforce capacity, as Dr Nagpaul writes: “Given your in-depth understanding of the NHS following your time as Health Secretary, we ask you make a commitment to reform the lifetime allowance and to address the punitive impact caused by the annual allowance and the tapered annual allowance should you become the next Prime Minister.”
The letters reference a survey of consultants carried out by the BMA earlier in the year which reveals the extent of the workforce crisis emerging from the current pension taxation as, which reads: “Our survey of over 4,000 consultants, revealed that over 60% intended to retire at or before the age of 60, with more than half citing the pensions taxation issues as the reason for this.
“GPs are similarly impacted resulting in a fall in whole time equivalent GP numbers at a time when the Government has committed to recruit 5,000 new GPs. This worrying trend is coupled with a subsequent increase in patient waiting times for GP appointments.”