Senior executives at Mars Inc and UK bakery retailer Greggs have called on the Government to introduce measures to boost consumer spending in next month’s Budget.
Fiona Dawson, MD of Mars’ UK operations, said consumer confidence remained “incredibly low” and urged the Chancellor to help spending and tackle unemployment, which stands at 2.7m.
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“Consumer confidence is still incredibly low, it’s lower than possibly even the Government recognises at the moment,” Dawson told the BBC’s Newsnight programme yesterday. “Therefore, in terms of the coming Budget, anything that can be done in terms of helping the unemployed, in terms of helping disposable income, in terms of helping people back into the workforce has got to be a good thing.”
Kennedy McKeikan, Greggs’ chief executive, echoed Dawson’s call for the Government to focus on improving disposable income and said investment in infrastructure could help.
“If we get some of these big schemes that actually create jobs into the economy, then from a consumer point of view, that puts more money back into people’s pockets, which means we’ve got more disposable income, which means people are going to start spending again,” McKeikan said.
Mark Price, MD of upmarket retailer Waitrose, argued reducing the national debt must be the Chancellor’s focus.
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By GlobalData“The big thing is getting down the national debt. That has to be our focus. We’re spending too much on the state, we need to get ourselves in good shape. That trumps everything else,” Price said.
