Retail Industry Leadership Group review meeting minutes: August 2026

Attendees and apologies

ILG members attending

• Lucy Brown (LB), Central Operations Director, John Lewis Partnership, and Retail ILG Co-Chair
• David Lonsdale (DL), Director, Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC)
• Garry Fenton (GF), Head of Retail, Greggs
• Luke McGarty (LMcG), Head of Policy, Public Affairs and Communications, Scottish Grocers’ Federation
• Mark Millar (MM), Director of Stores – Scotland, Boots
• Colin Smith (CS), Chief Executive, Scottish Wholesale Association
• Grace O’Keeffe (GO), Corporate Affairs Manager, Asda
• Graeme Thomson (GT), Retail Commercial Director, One O One Convenience Store
• Laura McCormack (LMcC), Head of Policy & Public Affairs, Booksellers Association
• Gillian Frew (GFr), Serving Member – Volunteer Member's Council, Federation of Small Business (FSB)

Apologies

• Mo Razzaq (MR), Chair of Political Engagement - National Federation of Independent Retailers
• Kelly O’Sullivan (KO), Head of Communications and Devolved Government Relations, Tesco
• Tony Doonan (TD), Regional Secretary (Scotland), Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW)
• Sonya Harper (SH), Chief Operating Officer, CJ Lang & Son

Scottish Government

• Allan Clifford (AC), Team Leader Retail Policy
• Celeste Wilson (CW), Senior Policy Advisor
• Ross Sayers (RS), Policy Advisor

Items and actions

Welcome & General ILG thoughts

• LB welcomed members to the meeting, advised that Mr Tom Arthur will be our Ministerial co-chair again.
• MM: positive to have Mr Arthur, history of good engagements. Something we need to work on: when we get curveballs, policies out of nowhere, how do we encourage open and continued dialogue. We may not agree but how do we get to input before it becomes policy. Retail crime a good template, we can help influence Government and it’s positive for us all.
• GF: Minister are used to seeing data/stats, but real life storytelling is vital. Good to get out and about.

Updating the Group’s Terms of Reference (ToR)

LB opened the floor for any feedback on the ToR not already shared.

• LMcG: Content with suggested changes, and welcome the suggestion that a relevant Minister being able to join us when we’re discussing one of their portfolio issues would be a very positive thing. More engagement the better. SGF meeting Ms Oswald in early September re: illicit trade.
• LB: Ms Oswald joining us for September meeting, and visiting John Lewis the day before.
• LMcC: Suggested update on identifying meetings dates as far in advance would be great, could hybrid be offered more?
• LB: where possible we try to make them hybrid, depends on tech. We want to give more notice for meetings.
• CS: Expectations of Gov in relation to NSET? ILG’s vision was to make Scotland the best place to grow a retail business. We are there to provide a collaborative approach to influence policy, we’ve not developed any retail policy. We’ve engaged with Mr Arthur on proposed Food Price Cap, but what more could we be doing to shape the direction of travel.
• DL: vision for the Group, we should be aiming to live up to that.
• DL: Ok to the suggested ToR updates
• LB: thanked members for feedback, secretariat will take this into consideration.

The Retail Strategy (‘Getting the Right Change’)

• LB moved on to discuss the Retail Strategy.
• DL: last 4 years been so fast paced. Only one mention of retail crime in the strategy. Employment rights act, national living wage rises, DRS, lots and lots happening. Overall, valuable to have a strategy. When we have a strategy, we feel recognised. Open to redrafting it. Last time was Gov led, which made sense at the time. Refreshing it, who would do this? Would it need to be another 60 pages, or shorter and sharper?
• LB: agree that we should have a strategy. What we’re doing, is it getting us closer to achieving the Group’s vision? If not advancing the cause, we should be challenging this. Would be up for refreshing the strategy, shorter version.
• LMcG: could AI assist? Think SG brought out a doc in March about how businesses can utilise AI.
• LB: Minister brought up AI when we spoke. And relevant to the skills agenda, what kind of skills do young people need to master to be successful?
• GO: because AI is new and exciting, it can swallow up whole meetings. If we include in agenda, best at the end.
• CS: Re: Retail Strategy, NSET – who’s actually overseeing and reviewing progress? So much going on, no one’s tracking and reviewing what’s been decided in the past. New MSPs may not know these exist. Potential to open up Group to anyone who wishes to attend, to educate MSPs on what’s going on.
• AC: Been a bit of churn in portfolios, significant change in policy areas. That will be a conversation to have between Mr Arthur and Lucy. Probably a good time to review strategy, ensuring linkage with upcoming PfG. Make sure they’re aligned.
• AC: suggest that we need to collectively work together to keep our agenda as close to the top of respective priority lists as possible, due to new parliament, bigger portfolios, competing priorities.
• LB: Many documents out there like our strategy. We can shorten and refresh and share it with members on priorities, easier to digest and get across the message of the strategy. Will discuss Strategy doc with secretariat offline and then send round to members for feedback. Will extend September’s meeting by 30 minutes.
• DL: in addition to the strategy, we used to have a grid with traffic lights on targets and progress, fallen away. Even if we had 3 or 4 key priorities to work towards and mark out progress and hold ourselves to account.
• LB: fair suggestion, if we had a couple of pages with targets for 12/18 months. Some will come organically. Knowing what we’re aiming for will be useful.

Closing remarks and thoughts on future ILG meetings

• CW Suggested adding an additional 30 mins to ILG in September to cover AOB
• LB: we’ll share the updated ToR, we’ll share a shortened version of the Strategy. Aim to have agenda slot for hot topics to cover wider issues with the additional time added to the September meeting.
• DL: the Group may want to tackle the PfG at an ILG soon. 
• LB: PfG will have things we want to work collaboratively on.
• LB: SAH in September and Mr Arthur wants to get out and about for December meeting. 
• LMcC raised that at recent meetings there has been huge focus on retail crime, acknowledged this is a big issue for sector, but hard to raise wider issues affecting other parts of retail. Could parts of the agenda be given to other issues.
• LB: we always want to tackle hot topics, please send on suggestions to secretariat.
• GT: how do we join the dots where separate areas aren’t being linked in. Retail crime taskforce working well but then Justice not quite working in practice. How do we join up and create collaboration and identify blockers to ministers?
• DL: new PM, has talked about a renaissance of high streets. We’ve talked loosely before about getting UKG at the table, when appropriate merit in including UKG.

Action Points

Secretariat to make agreed changes to ToR and share with members for approval:

• That the Group should meet 5 times per year as a minimum, with 4 of these in person and 1 virtually.
• Additional Ministers will be invited to attend meetings if the agenda items relate to their portfolio area.
• Secretariat will aim to identify the 4 or 5 weeks of the year meetings will be taking place at the start of the calendar year so members can plan accordingly. (Minister’s attendance subject to Parliamentary business.)

 

• Secretariat to extend September ILG meeting by 30 minutes.
• Lucy to prepare shortened version of what could work for the Retail Strategy, including some key targets for the Group, and share with members for feedback.