The UK retail industry is faced with high store closures and job losses. The 12-month average retail sales growth currently is just 0.1 per cent, the lowest on record, though the industry has invested in research and development as well as new technologies.

The UK retail industry accounts for five per cent of the economy and drives 5.1 per cent productivity growth across the industry compared to just 0.5 per cent in the United Kingdom as a whole.

Among the measures needed are lowering the burden of business rates, reforming the apprenticeship levy to allow greater flexibility to spend on any form of accredited training, and protecting hardworking shop workers by bringing forward legislation to safeguard the 115 retail workers who are attacked every day. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has put forward recommendations for a comprehensive strategy for retail as well as measures to reform funding for digital skills and to tackle both in-store crime and online fraud. In addition BRC wants action to be taken to promote investment and allow the industry to fulfil its vision of success. It wants support for the industry’s transformation driven by new technology and changing consumer behavior. All this, says BRC, is needed if retail is to be the vision of success it sets out to be.