British retailers have agreed to make a 'goodwill gesture' to help out 100,000 families that were left without Chri...
British retailers have agreed to make a 'goodwill gesture' to help out 100,000 families that were left without Christmas savings following the collapse of hamper company Farepak.

Consumer minister Ian McCartney and British Retail Consortium director-general Kevin Hawkins met at the Department of Trade and Industry on Saturday morning to thrash out the terms of a deal.

A BRC spokesman told Retail Week that, following a call for support from McCartney last week, retailers had ' -overwhelmingly said they would be interested in making a goodwill gesture'.

However he added that, before any concrete plans could be made, 'practical issues like what will retailers offer? How many former Farepak customers are there? What will the cost be?' would need to be answered.

The spokesman said that McCartney and Hawkins had discussed these issues and that there would be a further meeting later this week, once retailers had taken time to digest what would be required.

Also present at the Saturday meeting was a representative from Farepak's administrator BDO Stoy Hayward, which has estimated there are as many as 100,000, mainly poor, families that have been hit by the problems at Farepak.

Speaking after the meeting, McCartney said: 'I want to ensure that any package would be simple, not derisory, fraud free, easy to administer at store level and have as much choice as possible for the customers to shop where they want.

'This will not be a compensation package and members of the BRC are under no legal obligation to provide any help, but they have had a lot of interest from many large retailers, which are keen to try and do something,' he added.

Farepak is part of the European Home Retail group, which called in the receivers on October 13.