News

The National Living Wage will come into force today (1^st April) for all employees aged 25 and over. The new rate of pay for these workers will be £7.20 per hour.

The Chancellor announced the National Living Wage as part of his 2015 Budget without consultation with the Low Pay Commission, and has signalled his intention for the rate to reach at least £9 per hour by 2020.

The Government has announced that the current £1 coin is being replaced for the first time in over 30 years because of its vulnerability to sophisticated counterfeiters. The new 12-sided coin resembles the old ‘threepenny bit’, with the Royal Mint claiming that it will be the world’s most secure coin in circulation.

Levels of counterfeit £1 coins have been as high as 3% in the past few years, equating to around 45 million coins. The new coin will aim to reduce the costs of counterfeits to businesses and the taxpayer.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed HMRC’s new Alcohol Strategy, aimed at tackling the illicit trade in alcohol.

The strategy consists of three main parts:

The 2016 ACS Crime Report has revealed that crime against local shops is costing an estimated £122m, or £2,370 per store. On top of this, the average store is investing £1,379 in crime prevention. The total costs of crime and crime prevention equate to the cost of employing over 12,000 additional full time staff in stores.

ACS has welcomed the Chancellor’s announcement that the small business rate relief threshold will be raised to £15,000 rateable value from £6,000.

In the Budget, the Chancellor also announced that from 2020, future business rates increases will be based on CPI rather than RPI, which should lead to less steep increases in rates bills for retailers.

ACS has called on the Chancellor to reintroduce the Retail Rate Relief scheme for small businesses as part of a package of measures to help local shops and high streets.

In its submission to the Chancellor’s Budget on March 16^th, ACS has called for the following:

There’s plenty of discussion in the media about business rates policy, with most retail and wider business groups agreeing there needs to be a change to the way rates are calculated and collected (see businesses organisations agreed position here). But what specifics should we expect, or hope for, when the Chancellor stands up on Wednesday?

Local shops across the UK have welcomed parliament’s decision to reject changes to Sunday trading laws in vote on the Enterprise Bill this afternoon.

The proposals, which would have seen local councils given the power to remove Sunday trading hours in their local area, were rejected by 317 votes to 286 as MPs supported David Burrowes campaign to retain the existing laws.

Hours before MPs are set to vote on the future of Sunday trading regulations in England and Wales, the Government have published its impact assessment on the proposals.

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “This so-called impact assessment does nothing more than reiterate the Government’s shoddy decade old evidence for change, whilst continuing to ignore the concerns of shop workers, retailers and consumers. For the Government to release this assessment mere minutes before the debate on Sunday trading is a disgrace.”

Campaign group Keep Sunday Special have reissued their calls to MPs to vote against proposals to devolve Sunday trading hours to local authorities, highlighting the failure of Government officials to go through a legitimate and robust consultation process in making their decision.