ACS

On the day that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister published the Coalition Agreement setting out their policy platform, ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has pledged to work with the new Government to help implement its agenda for change.

ACS Chief Executive James Lowman said: “This is a positive agenda and we want to play a full part in helping the Government to deliver against it. Our role is to work closely with Ministers and officials to make sure that the rhetoric is matched by practical policies that benefit communities and the local shops that serve them”

ACS has identified some key areas of the agreement that are particularly relevant to local shops:

On the Grocery Market

Mr Lowman commented: “We have been campaigning for action to ensure that the grocery market is a level playing field where retailers of all kinds can compete hard to deliver the best service and choice to consumers. The new Government commitment to the introduction of a Grocery Ombudsman and a local competition test for retail planning applications are a breakthrough in our campaigning work.

“These are exciting opportunities and ACS will make every effort to assist Government in making sure they deliver on the ambition to deliver a level playing field in our vitally important grocery industry.”

On Alcohol Policy

Mr Lowman commented: “Many local shops will welcome the Government’s decision to ban below cost selling of alcohol having suffered the anti-competitive effects of aggressive supermarket pricing strategies. We still think there is work to be done to understand how this measure will actually help to prevent binge or problem drinking, but we will play a constructive role in the development of policy.

“We will be urging Government to resist any move to wholesale change in alcohol licensing. Many retailers will feel that they have only recently settled down from previous costly upheavals. We believe that objectives in tackling alcohol related disorder can be achieved by making targeted small scale changes. Throughout we will urge Government to ensure retailers are treated fairly on the basis of their own standards.”

On Better Regulation

Mr Lowman commented: “Every Government talks a good game on better regulation, but now we need to see delivery. As well as good ideas like sunset clauses, reform of the inspection regime and targeting an overall reduction in red tape, the new Government has to embed in the policy-making process a commitment to evidence-based regulation and only imposing costs on businesses where there is a clear and over-whelming need to do so.”

Contacts:

Shane Brennan, Public Affairs Director
01252 533009 / 07921 372978

Chris Noice, Communications Assistant
01252 533013

Notes to Editors:

1. ACS (Association of Convenience Stores) is the voice of local shops, representing over 33,500 convenience stores. ACS helps local shops thrive through lobbying, support and networking opportunities.

2. A full summary of the Coalition Agreement Document is available in the ACS campaign centre at www.acs.org.uk – and the full document at the following link Coalition Agreement

3. Extracts from the Coalition Agreement referred to in the above release

Planning

• We will seek to ensure a level playing field between small and large retailers by enabling councils to take competition issues into account when drawing up their local plans to shape the direction and type of new retail development.
• In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication ‘Open Source Planning’.
• We will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development and setting out national economic, environmental and social priorities.

Grocery Market

• We will introduce, as a first step, an Ombudsman in the Office of Fair Trading who can proactively enforce the Grocery Supply Code of Practice and curb abuses of power, which undermine our farmers and act against the long-term interest of consumers.
• We will introduce honesty in food labelling so that consumers can be confident about where their food comes from and its environmental impact.

Alcohol

• We will ban the sale of alcohol below cost price
• We will review alcohol taxation and pricing to ensure it tackles binge drinking without unfairly penalising responsible drinkers, pubs and important local industries.
• We will overhaul the Licensing Act to give local authorities and the police much stronger powers to remove licences from, or refuse to grant licences to, any premises that are causing problems.
• We will allow councils and the police to shut down permanently any shop or bar found to be persistently selling alcohol to children.
• We will double the maximum fine for under-age alcohol sales to £20,000.
• We will permit local councils to charge more for late-night licences to pay for additional policing.

Business

• We will cut red tape by introducing a ‘one-in, one-out’ rule whereby no new regulation is brought in without other regulation being cut by a greater amount.
• We will end the culture of ‘tick-box’ regulation, and instead target inspections on high-risk organisations through co-regulation and improving professional standards.
• We will impose ‘sunset clauses’ on regulations and regulators to ensure that the need for each regulation is regularly reviewed.
• We will review IR 35, as part of a wholesale review of all small business taxation, and seek to replace it with simpler measures that prevent tax avoidance but do not place undue administrative burdens or uncertainty on the self-employed, or restrict labour market flexibility.
• We will find a practical way to make small business rate relief automatic.
• We will reform the corporate tax system by simplifying reliefs and allowances, and tackling avoidance, in order to reduce headline rates. Our aim is to create the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20, while protecting manufacturing industries.
• We will give the public the opportunity to challenge the worst regulations.
• We will end the so-called ‘gold-plating’ of EU rules, so that British businesses are not disadvantaged relative to their European competitors.