Tougher lockdown rules are ‘counterproductive’, Ocado boss says

Linda J. Dodson

Another lockdown would be the Government’s “biggest blunder”, according to the chairman of Ocado.

Lord Stuart Rose, the former executive chairman of Marks & Spencer, described the 10pm curfew that has been imposed on pubs and restaurants across England, Wales and Scotland for more than a fortnight as “bungled”.

It demonstrated ministers’ “lack of foresight and strategic thinking” and risked millions of workers losing their jobs, he claimed.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, Lord Rose said there was little evidence that a second national lockdown would be beneficial, echoing concerns raised by fellow business leaders.

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, for example, welcomed new support measures announced by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Friday but called for more “evidence [to be] published around restrictions”.

The Prime Minister is expected to detail a new three-tier system of restrictions today, with measures to force pubs and restaurants to shut across the north of England, and millions of people banned from mixing, both indoors and outdoors.

Prof Peter Horby, of the University of Oxford, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday that stringent measures were needed to avoid a second national lockdown as coronavirus case numbers, hospital admissions and deaths climb.

“The cities of the North already under local lockdown have seen rises, not reductions, in Covid infections,” Lord Rose wrote. “The lockdown regulations are unpopular, confusing and, in the case of the 10pm curfew, counterproductive.”

He went on to compare what he described as the Government’s “habitual secrecy” about information on Covid-19 to “how, a generation ago, doctors didn’t tell people they had cancer for fear of upsetting them”.

Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, told Mr Marr it was “absolutely absurd that the mayor of Greater Manchester, who is seeing very, very high transmission rates in his area, cannot get access to that data”.

Lord Rose urged business leaders to “get people back to work even if we have to set up our own testing systems, as several of the companies I am involved with have done”.

He also implored ministers to lead by example by bringing civil servants back to their offices. “Yes, there should be regular testing,” he wrote.

“Yes, the vulnerable should be protected. But we need people back in our city centres, shops, and sports venues. We need people to buy coffee, sandwiches, rail and bus tickets, shoes and clothes.”

Separately, a report by the accountancy and business advisory firm BDO found that the recovery in UK business was losing momentum, especially as output growth in the services sector slowed significantly last month from 11.2 points in June to 1 point in September.

BDO attributed the decline to restrictive government measures such as the “rule of six”, introduced on Sept 14, and the 10pm curfew.

Kaley Crossthwaite, of BDO, said: “There remains significant uncertainty over the pace and path of the UK’s economic recovery, but hopes of a V-shaped recovery now seem remote.

“The nature and duration of further measures introduced to suppress infection levels will undoubtedly have a major influence on our economic trajectory, and a nationwide ‘circuit breaker’ could inflict further pain in the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, a report by the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) warned that jobs in hospitality and manufacturing were likely to be hardest hit by automation spurred by the crisis.

It said changing consumer trends, public health measures and the cost of labour all boosted “the rise of the robots”.

“Many workers who need to be retrained may be lulled into a false sense of security by the current pandemic,” Fabian Wallace-Stephens, of the RSA, said. “We saw increased demand for supermarket workers during the first lockdown but technology such as checkout-free stores could prove to be a gamechanger in the second wave.”

Source Article

Next Post

Breaking up Silicon Valley’s tech giants isn’t as simple as it sounds

As predominantly a device manufacturer, there are justifiable concerns about some aspects of Apple’s business – above all the 30pc “Apple tax” charged to third-party app developers on the App Store. But this could be remedied easily without resorting to a break-up. Critics have, in the past, proposed that Amazon […]

You May Like