Inside Business

The British Retail Consortium has given its members the tools to handle shops reopening after consulting with unions and businesses, writes James Moore

Social distancing will continue even after shutters are lifted

(PA)

It’s a shock when Boris “contain your impatience” Johnson emerges as a voice of reason in any debate, let alone one as important as when to open the economy.

What Johnson appears to recognise with that statement is that it’s not a lot of good taking the plunge and freeing the economy if you then have to shut everything down a couple weeks later because people start dying again. Britain has already suffered far too many fatalities thanks to the decisions taken, or rather not taken, by his government.

So caution should be the watchword, but that also extends to the period after the doors are reopened. Enter the British Retail Consortium (BRC). The trade body has published guidance for its members on how to handle the next phase whenever public health experts adjudge that it is safe to enter it.