A ‘glimmer of hope’ for businesses despite clouds of confusion

Tomorrow will mark 50 days since Boris Johnson sent the UK into lockdown, even if it does sometimes feel more like a lifetime.

Today a 50-page document sets out more details on what industry leaders have called the “first glimmer of hope” for businesses whose very survival depends on that lockdown coming to an end.

Johnson’s verbal unfurling of his roadmap yesterday was (true to form) vague, full of gaps and in some areas downright confusing.

The PM’s moves on easing lockdown are also, worryingly, at odds with all of the other devolved nations – and not just because of their disdain for his meaningless new Stay Alert logo. (If only the government had taken that advice to heart at the start of this mess.)

Today’s document does provide a bit more clarity. After weeks of speculation it confirms, despite the apparent absence of any new evidence, that the public are being asked to wear masks in confined spaces, such as in shops and on public transport. This is in line with Scotland, though it’s a policy that has been widely ignored north of the border.

The guidance on masks (or face coverings as it prefers to calls them) is bound to spark renewed concern over the impact on food factories where, as The Grocer has revealed, masks have already been running short. It’s not just the NHS that could be affected.

Food and drink industry players react to Boris Johnson’s lockdown easing announcement

The document also confirms that people working for food manufacturers are among those Johnson wants to get on their bikes and back to work. 

Sadly it offers no more clarity than the PM on another piece of public advice: how workers should avoid using public transport, if they don’t have a car or a bike capable of the average 10-mile commute.

Businesses will tomorrow receive more new advice on how Covid-19 safety measures are supposed to operate.

While the government was forced to frantically u-turn today after Johnson’s speech implied workers should return from lockdown today, the fact that they are expected back on Wednesday, with companies having fewer than 24 hours to absorb the new safety procedures, doesn’t exactly bode well.

There are major flaws in presentation and substance, then. The document also confirms it won’t be until at least 1 June that schools reopen their doors, and at least 4 July for any sort of return for the battered hospitality sector. But there are at least some grounds for hope that there is a way out of this nightmare.

It’s not in the document, but surely a great deal of that must be taken from the way the food and drink industry has responded to this crisis – sometimes helped by ministers and sometimes despite being hindered by their incompetence.

Consider how the empty shelves and panic buying bordering on chaos in supermarkets in mid-March looks mid-May, with stocks increasingly back to normal. Within the space of what is only a few weeks, social distancing measures have become accepted norms and food shortages appear no longer a real threat for most consumers. Meanwhile, virtually crippled online delivery services are starting to show signs of getting back to normal, thanks to retailers providing hundreds of thousands of slots that previously didn’t exist.

Look at how food and drink suppliers have responded to the crisis, too, with lightning-fast adjustments to their ranges and in many cases setting up entirely new ways to market from scratch. 

And learn a lesson from how the workforce has responded, with the feared staffing crisis never materialising even at the outbreak’s peak and staff levels now well within manageable limits. All this provides grounds for optimism, even if they are only a glimmer, that the UK can start gradually coming back to some sort of life worth living, albeit only if the wider industry demonstrates the same pragmatism and innovative thinking.

Yes, we need more details and answers to some of these vital unanswered questions, but in another 50 days things are likely to look very different again.