Irwin Mitchell Commends CEO’s Efforts With Brexit And Other Issues

Emma Yates, who leads the Retail sector at law firm Irwin Mitchell, has echoed the comments made by the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, Helen Dickinson, in an interview in the Retail Gazette about the challenges ahead and how much the industry has changed over the last six years.

The wide-ranging article covers a number of issues including Brexit in which Dickinson discusses her organisation’s campaign and says that avoiding a no-deal Brexit is essential.

She says: “That ability to deliver pretty low inflation or even deflation in non-food over the last five years or so has been dependent on frictionless movement of goods across borders, and to the extent that goods are imported from the EU, or from countries that the EU has a trade deal with, as there are no tariffs on those goods coming in.

“So the continuation in some way – however we get that – of frictionless, tariff-free, movement of goods has been priority number one in our campaign, as has access to labour of all levels because lots of retailers rely on people from – if not across the world, but particularly across the EU.

“If we’re on WTO tariffs, and if we have any friction at the borders, that will put costs up for retailers and hence prices up for consumers.”

The British Retail Consortium has more than 5,000 members, which make up 60 per cent of the UK's retail market share.

Other issues covered included in the article include Business Rates, international tax rates and diversity in the retail sector.

The full article can be downloaded here