Stephen Robertson: VAT increase to 20% would put paid to a retail-led recovery

In Scotland, retail employs 245,000 people, or 10.5 per cent of the workforce. We want policymakers to oil and support this motor of growth, not impose new costs and burdens.

We'll be watching the VAT debate anxiously. Any increases would hit customers and dampen the recovery. Yes, the deficit has to be tackled, but the main tool must be public spending cuts. A detailed study published by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) today shows increasing VAT to 20 per cent would cost the UK 163,000 jobs over four years and reduce consumer spending by 3.6 billion. Business growth will get us out of the hole we're in.

We're pleased that the new UK coalition has agreed not to go ahead with the full rise in national insurance contributions, and we'd like a guarantee that any future increases in the minimum wage won't exceed average wage movements.

Government must work out how to help employers, not get in their way.

In Scotland, we'll be stressing we don't need regulatory and financial weights added when trying to steam ahead in a storm.

Take property costs. The recent Scottish business rates settlement is good for small shops but large businesses feel let down, and it has diverted budgets from employment, investment and the recovery.

The other core concern in the UK nations is trying to ensure devolved regulation is better regulation, doesn't impose unnecessary and disproportionate burdens, and is well-targeted without hampering retailers.

For example, MSPs have recently been devoting much parliamentary time to "sin products" – tobacco and alcohol – creating a lot more heat than light.

But we're looking ahead to the election at Holyrood in May 2011. With accelerating the recovery the main priority, a successful retail policy framework would explore all ways to work with us, not against us.

What features should a retail policy framework have? Does government, at UK or Scottish level, have a strategy for retail?

How do we further increase employment in the retail sector? What are the conditions which help retail flourish and which politicians can influence?

How do we ensure the UK and Scotland are competitive world-class retail destinations, so that British and international customers want to shop here?

Scotland has already started to make the links between its new Food and Drink Policy and retailing. How does retailing link with our strategy for other sectors – ie manufacturing?

We need more coherent thinking along these lines. We're not recommending a heavy-handed interventionist approach.

In fact, government often needs to leave us to do the things we do well, but it also needs a better understanding of our central role.

There's much they get right, but they sometimes see us as secondary to, say, farmers and fishermen, or to health policy. When sales figures are published, they may regard us as "an important bellwether of the health of the economy".

Well, yes we are, but what doesn't come over is a strong sense of seeing the primary importance of retail in its own right, as a huge investor in and driver of the economy, and as the largest private sector employer.

Stephen Robertson is director general of the British Retail Consortium and a speaker at The Scotsman Conferences event Shopping for Growth, Tuesday, 2 June. www.scotsmanconferences.com