From Wales to Westminster, a confused and sometimes politically partisan response to the resurgent Covid-19 outbreak is threatening retail’s recovery.

The latest Office for National Statistics retail sales data, recording big year-on-year rises by value and volume, shows consumer demand is there for the products and services provided in shops.

Wales lockdown

The new Welsh lockdown is riddled with complexity and muddled thinking

But continually changing rules in various parts of the UK – and the rows between politicians that have accompanied them – are only making life harder for retailers.

The imposition of Tier 3 restrictions on Greater Manchester and the stand-off between mayor Andy Burnham and prime minister Boris Johnson raised fears about people’s job and income security – with obvious implications for retailers.

Needlessly, it turned out, after chancellor Rishi Sunak’s latest job support initiative addressed nationally what had been at the heart of the dispute in the North West.

The tiers system, which cities and regions seem to move in and out of or hover in limbo between, is just one example of how local rules are making life hard for retailers and confusing and unnerving for consumers. In Scotland, there will be five tiers, not three, while in Wales a full lockdown has been imposed.

Unpleasant undertone

The Welsh government’s stance, as well as being the most restrictive, also seems to be riddled with headache-inducing complexity and muddled thinking.

This time, not only has trading been limited to ‘essential’ retailers, the ranges they sell are classified as essential or non-essential too – items in the latter group may not be sold, despite the shops being open. 

Just hours before the new measures came into force, what products exactly fall into which categories had not been specified. What a cavalier attitude, verging on contempt, towards a sector that stepped up for the public during the first lockdown.

The decision was driven by the desire to protect non-essential retailers by stopping stores such as supermarkets benefiting from their competitors’ closure by continuing to sell non-food lines.  

“It is a high price for the retail industry to pay for the failure of policymakers to sufficiently influence the lives of those they govern”

But it won’t do that. Has Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford not heard of Amazon? The online giant will be the obvious winner of the lockdown in Wales. 

Similarly, big grocers such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s will be able to carry on selling goods such as clothing and electricals online. So too will other retailers. And click-and-collect is also allowed. The competition argument for restricting what can be sold in shops simply doesn’t stack up.

There’s also an unpleasant undertone to Drakeford’s comments. At the height of the spring lockdown, supermarket staff were seen as heroes, key workers who kept the country fed and moved fast to ensure safe shopping. 

But Drakeford said last week: “In the last lockdown, people were reasonably understanding of the fact that supermarkets didn’t close all the things that they may have needed to. I don’t think people will be as understanding this time.”

Understanding? People were grateful and not “reasonably” grateful, but very. What a shabby attitude to take towards businesses that kept the nation going and towards their staff who worked despite the risks.

Recipe for abuse

But people have short memories. Abuse of store staff has risen during the pandemic. The Welsh restrictions have all the ingredients of a recipe for further abuse. You can easily imagine the behaviour of some frustrated shoppers who went to a shop only to find what they wanted was deemed non-essential, even though it may have been visible on a shelf just yards away – and over the first few days of the latest lockdown, there have been examples of just that.

The new lockdown also seems to take no account of the fact that there is scant evidence of shops being significant sources of spreading the virus. It begs the question of whether shops should have to shut at all?

Shoe Zone chair Charles Smith tweeted me: “My best store in Wales is positioned between two supermarkets. They will rightly be open. The buildings are joined together on a retail park. We are not allowed to open…”

Quite. Shoppers will be going there but having made the journey they can only visit a selection of the stores and buy a selection of the product.

The closure of retail in Wales and some of the measures in place elsewhere, such as those affecting pubs, appear as much as anything to be a forceful reminder to the general public that things are not normal and that they need to alter their behaviour accordingly.

It is a high price for the retail industry to pay for the failure of policymakers to sufficiently influence the lives of those they govern.