The Northern Ireland Assembly intends to give consumers high street vouchers worth up to £100 per person in a bid to stimulate spending and help retail and hospitality recover from the coronavirus crisis. Industry experts share their views on whether the scheme should be replicated across the UK.  

Nigel Murray, chief operating officer, Booths

Nigel Murray, Booths

Yes. However, it’s clear the high street and particularly smaller independent retailers will need all the help they can get this Christmas. It is also vitally important any support package that relies on consumer spend is carefully designed to benefit consumers on the basis of need.

Any scheme created should be able to be accessed by those in greatest financial need and should be designed to be redeemed in physical shops, specifically local, independent non-food retail businesses.

We believe it would be a very positive gesture by the government, akin to the Eat Out to Help Out support provided to the hospitality industry in August, and should be supported by a ‘spend local/support independents’ campaign.

Steve Murrells, group chief executive, The Co-op

Steve Murrells

What’s been announced in Northern Ireland, I assume comes off the back of the successful kick-start that the restaurant trade enjoyed under the Eat Out to Help Out scheme a number of months back from the Treasury. 

Any help and support that can be provided, in general, I am an absolute advocate of. To be fair to Whitehall, they have continued to recognise the help that businesses need and have moved forwards. 

In the round, vouchers would be helpful but would be less helpful if we don’t get a deal agreed with our European friends. There is a bigger issue that is going on as far as Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland is concerned and that’s very much aligned to reaching an agreement with the EU on a Brexit trade deal.

Here we are, close to 50 days to go, and retailers are still waiting on clarity in order to carry on serving our businesses across the water. The two things we are trying to overcome are to keep full availability of what Northern Irish and southern Irish customers have enjoyed buying and to not be a victim of significant price inflation. 

That’s going to be the critical thing, as opposed to whether or not the voucher scheme is a good thing.

Suzy Ross, founder, Bureau of CustomerKeepers

Suzy Ross

This idea gets a resounding no from me. It would be another headline-grabbing, blunt, feelgood, sticking plaster that does not address the fundamental existential challenges – exacerbated by Covid – being experienced on the high street. 

In the short term, the government should devise focused, pincer-like actions to help those households that are really struggling, and those retailers and hospitality businesses that are fundamentally sound and just need a short-term boost to survive into a post-pandemic world.

My fear would be that this money would go to many households that don’t need it and to those retailers, like the grocers, who have boomed in the crisis. 

In the longer term, far better to focus on addressing structural challenges – disproportionate business rates, planning restrictions for change of use, spiralling transport costs – that are benefiting the online pureplays yet hollowing out once-thriving retail communities and leaving our high streets with no sense of place or purpose.