Mary Portas and Charlotte Tilbury appeal for Shop Out to Help Out scheme to support indie retailers next month

The High Street hero, Mary Portas has issued a plea to the government to support family-run stores with a Shop Out to Help Out scheme upon the lifting of restrictions on non essential retailers this April 12th.

Portas has joined major high street names in fashion and beauty, Henry Holland and Charlotte Tilbury, to throw a collective weight behind an initiative developed to boost business for local, independent retailers when businesses reopen again next month.

The concept borrows from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme that was launched last August, through which customers were encouraged to use cafes and restaurants with subsidised meals. The campaign for small shops now wants a similar programme, suggesting that the state cover 50 per cent of the cost of goods bought at indie, non essential retailers.

The campaign suggests that the scheme is capped at £10.

Like Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, it would run for a month in the summer, with discounts running form Monday to Wednesday, however, it would be limited to independent firms with fewer than ten staff, selling in physical stores.

First reported by the Daily Mail, government ministers are said to be ‘receptive’ to the proposal that suggests that the government would reimburse retailers with customers able to get one discount per transaction.

Portas said: “Covid-19 has chipped away at the brilliant diversity of our high streets. We need to act now to harness the support, need and love that people have for our high streets.

“These businesses, in the pandemic, have held our communities together. A scheme like this will bring a vital lease of life back to places that mean so much to us.”

Tilbury, the founder of Charlotte Tilbury Beauty, said: “Independent retailers need our support to continue sharing their unique magic.”

Holland, founder of the House of Holland fashion brand, added: “Independent retailers bring our high streets to life with boundless creativity, unique points of view and a bottomless pit of ideas that you simply cannot get anywhere else.”

The idea is part of a wider campaign to support small firms – from shops to salons – dubbed Save The Street. It is orchestrated by pop-up shop specialist Appear Here.

Mary Portas and Charlotte Tilbury appeal for Shop Out to Help Out scheme to support indie retailers next month

The High Street hero, Mary Portas has issued a plea to the government to support family-run stores with a Shop Out to Help Out scheme upon the lifting of restrictions on non essential retailers this April 12th.

Portas has joined major high street names in fashion and beauty, Henry Holland and Charlotte Tilbury, to throw a collective weight behind an initiative developed to boost business for local, independent retailers when businesses reopen again next month.

The concept borrows from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme that was launched last August, through which customers were encouraged to use cafes and restaurants with subsidised meals. The campaign for small shops now wants a similar programme, suggesting that the state cover 50 per cent of the cost of goods bought at indie, non essential retailers.

The campaign suggests that the scheme is capped at £10.

Like Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, it would run for a month in the summer, with discounts running form Monday to Wednesday, however, it would be limited to independent firms with fewer than ten staff, selling in physical stores.

First reported by the Daily Mail, government ministers are said to be ‘receptive’ to the proposal that suggests that the government would reimburse retailers with customers able to get one discount per transaction.

Portas said: “Covid-19 has chipped away at the brilliant diversity of our high streets. We need to act now to harness the support, need and love that people have for our high streets.

“These businesses, in the pandemic, have held our communities together. A scheme like this will bring a vital lease of life back to places that mean so much to us.”

Tilbury, the founder of Charlotte Tilbury Beauty, said: “Independent retailers need our support to continue sharing their unique magic.”

Holland, founder of the House of Holland fashion brand, added: “Independent retailers bring our high streets to life with boundless creativity, unique points of view and a bottomless pit of ideas that you simply cannot get anywhere else.”

The idea is part of a wider campaign to support small firms – from shops to salons – dubbed Save The Street. It is orchestrated by pop-up shop specialist Appear Here.

Spring budget | Retail restart support, extended furlough, and £300m more for the Culture Recovery Fund

A restart programme to support retailers reopening next month and a £300 million culture recovery fund have been announced in a budget described as the Government’s “use of the full fiscal firepower of the country,” by Chancellor Rishi Sunak this afternoon.

Among the first issues addressed by Sunak as he outline the plans for the 2021 budget – billed as a ‘budget of our time’ – as England makes its preparations to ease out of lockdown, was the return to business for the country’s non-essential retailers.

Under a Restart Programme described by Sunak, non-essential retailers who will be on track to have suffered a 17 week closure through the country’s third lockdown, will be offered a £6,000 grant to help them get them moving forward again.

The support will be part of a £5 billion scheme for businesses across the country, adding to the total direct cash support system for business to now total £25bn over the course of the pandemic.

For hospitality and leisure businesses, the grant has been increased to £18,000 in accordance to the staggered re-opening and social restrictions that will be enforced as they return to operation. Business rates for such businesses will remain 100 per cent suspended for these businesses for the next three months, at which point rates will be discounted by two thirds for the remaining nine months of the year.

Meanwhile, the Culture Recovery Fund which provides financial support for music venues, independent cinemas, museums, galleries, theatres, and heritage sites as they weather the financial storm of the pandemic, will receive a boost of £300 million.

The first recipients of support from a fun that now totals £1.87bn were detail in October last year, with over 1,385 theatres, museums, and cultural organisations across England benefitting from a £257 million share of the fund.

The Prime Minister’s roadmap out of lockdown has also raised hopes around the return of the live music scene, with June 21st earmarked as the date of full relaxation on any and all coronavirus restrictions.

Elsewhere, a final key point to have arisen in Sunak’s afternoon budget address was the introduction of a increase to corporation tax from 2023 to 25 per cent. The tax will be applied to profits of the businesses in excess of £250,000. Companies with profits of less than £50,000 will remain at 19 per cent corporation tax.

“It’s a tax rise on company profits, but only on the larger more profitable companies, and only in two years’ time,” said Sunak.

The Chancellor also went on to confirm that the furlough scheme will be extended until the end of September with employees set to continue to receive 80 per cent of their wages until the scheme ends, but with firms asked to contribute 10 per cent in July, and 20 per cent in August and September as it begins to wind down.

Chris Brook-Carter, chief executive of retail industry charity retailTRUST, said: “Retail will have an absolutely vital role to play in tackling issues like youth employment and social mobility as we move out of this crisis so decisions taken now will not only protect vital jobs and businesses, but the social, economic and cultural importance of the sector to the UK. 

People working in retail have been hit hard financially, emotionally and physically during the entire course of the pandemic. They have had to cope with extremely difficult changes in their working conditions, livelihoods have been placed on hold during the lockdown periods, and, very sadly, tens of thousands of people have been left with no jobs to return to due to the pandemic’s devastating impact on shops and businesses up and down the country. This has led to record demand for retailTRUST’s services.

It is essential that the government and businesses now work together to safeguard our colleagues’ long-term interests and their wellbeing. And as a sector, we all have a responsibility to come together and make the most of initiatives which will help to protect, support and create roles.”

Chancellor details £4.6bn relief package for retail, hospitality, and leisure as England enters third lockdown

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has detailed a £4.6bn relief package for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors that will offer UK businesses a one-off grant worth up to £9,000.

The measures were announced this morning, following a public message from Prime Minister Boris Johnson last night that England is to enter a full lockdown period for a third time in the ongoing fight against the coronavirus pandemic and the latest developments surrounding a new strain of the virus here in the UK.

The payments, detailed by the chancellor on Tuesday, January 6th, are expected to support 600,000 business properties across the UK. A further £594 million will be made available to councils and devolved nations to support businesses not covered by the new grants.

Sunak said: “The new strain of the virus presents us all with a huge challenge – and whilst the vaccine is being rolled out, we have needed to tighten restrictions further.

“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve taken swift action to protect lives and livelihoods and today we’re announcing a further cash injection to support businesses and jobs until the spring. This will help businesses to get through the months ahead – and crucially it will help sustain jobs, so workers can be ready to return when they able to reopen.”

The third national lockdown will once again see the closure of all retail, hospitality, and leisure facilities deemed non-essential. A lesser blow to the toy industry than the previous national restriction measures imposed in the build up to the Christmas shopping period, its impact will still likely be felt across the indie retail network.

The cabinet secretary, Michael Gove, this morning said that he hoped the gradual lifting of restrictions could begin mid-February, but that the time it will take for the vaccines to take effect meant it was likely to be at least another couple of weeks before measures could start to be eased.

It is likely the measures will be in place until March this year.

“We can’t predict with certainty that we’ll be able to lift restrictions the week commencing February 15th,” he told Sky News this morning. “What we will be doing is everything we can to make sure that as many people as possible are vaccinated so that we can begin progressively to lift restrictions.

“I think it’s right to say that, as we enter March, we should be able to lift some of these restrictions – but not necessarily all.”

School closures of course mean that children will now be spending time at home, offering up more opportunity to the toy industry to capitalise on the need for home learning resources and toys. Many independent retailers are already primed for yesterday’s news, having implemented click and collect and delivery services throughout the course of England’s lockdown throughout the spring/summer of 2020.