COUPLE WHO OWN SPECSAVERS ARE WORTH £1.8BILLION AND LIVE IN GUERNSEY, WHERE THE TAX RATE FOR THE RICHEST IS LESS THAN HALF WHAT IT IS IN THE UK.
AROUND 20,000 SPECSAVERS WORKERS HAVE BEEN FURLOUGHED USING THE GOVERNMENT’S CORONAVIRUS JOB RETENTION SCHEME, WHERE 80% OF WAGES ARE PAID BY THE STATE.
BUT A COMPANY SPOKESPERSON TOLD VOICE.WALES THAT IN “MOST CASES” WORKERS ARE ONLY BEING PAID IN LINE WITH THE SCHEME, WITH STAFF TAKING A 20% PAY CUT DESPITE ANNUAL TURNOVER OF £3BILLION.
By Mark S Redfern. Specsavers on Queen St, Cardiff. Picture: voice.wales
The billionaire couple who own Specsavers are using public money to furlough their workers whilst living in a tax haven and using tax avoidance methods. Now the company has admitted to voice.wales that most staff are only receiving 80% of their pay – which is guaranteed by the government – with the owners choosing not to use their own extensive wealth to top up staff pay, leaving thousands with a 20% drop in income.
Mary and Doug Perkins, who together are worth an estimated £1.8 billion, are based in the low tax jurisdiction of Guernsey, where the highest earners typically pay 25% less tax than those living in the UK.
Llanelli-born Doug Perkins, and his wife, Dame Mary Perkins, furloughed workers in four of their manufacturing sites from the start of April using the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. They also used the scheme to furlough 18,500 out of 24,000 branch workers.
The programme guarantees 80% of workers’ contracted pay and has been a lifeline to around 6.3 million people. The Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak was recently forced to extend the scheme until the autumn following outcry from unions that it may be cut back in the coming months.
But with low pay endemic across the workforce, 80% of normal pay has left many workers struggling to survive. It is down to individual companies to pay their workers the extra 20% if they have the means to do so. Unions have protested at profitable firms refusing to top up pay.
Specsavers – who in 2018 recorded operating profits of £91Million and this year a turnover of around £3billion– are not guaranteeing their workers full pay during Coronavirus leaving thousands with a sizeable drop in income.
When asked directly by voice.wales if the company pays the additional 20% on top of the government’s scheme, a spokesperson for Specsavers told us that “pay decisions are handled locally” at the discretion of part-owners and managers, but admitted: “in most cases furloughed colleagues are being paid 80% in line with the job retention scheme.”
The Sunday Times compiled a list of business people on their Rich List who are also taking advantage of the taxpayer-funded scheme, but neglected to mention the couple.
Fracking-tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe – who recently took money from the Welsh Government for a new 4×4 business venture and disgraced Topshop head Sir Phillip Green are among the rich bosses who have been criticised for using the public-funded government scheme when they could have used their own enormous wealth instead.
In 2005, Phillip Green’s parent company Arcadia paid a £1.2bn dividend to its registered owner- Sir Philip’s wife, Tina. Since she was a resident of Monaco, she paid no tax in the UK.
Similarly, The Times reported last year that since 2014, dividends of £100million have been paid by Specsavers’ UK parent company to a company registered in Guernsey, where the corporate tax rate is 0%.
Doug Perkins was proud to talk about his working-class upbringing on a council estate in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, in a 2017 WalesOnline article which described him as: “The unassuming Welshman who is actually a billionaire”.
Perkins told the news site: “I am well and truly working class. And I’ve used it as an advantage: it gives you extra drive, there’s no doubt about that. When others may have slackened off, I’ve kept with the same work ethic for 50 years and I really enjoy what I do.”
Perkins described Carmarthenshire as “a great retreat” and added “West Wales in general has hugely improved [over time].”
This improvement is clearly not something felt by everyone, especially the poorest, public sector workers or the 20% of children in the area who are now living in poverty as a result of devastating austerity.
Last year, a report showed that since 2010, average investment in care homes, libraries, and schools in Wales has been slashed, whilst council tax has shot up for ordinary people and local jobs cut. At the same time, tax for people like Doug Perkins has gone down.
Years of austerity has led the Wales Fiscal Analysis team at Cardiff University to conclude that it is ordinary people, rather than billionaires, who are footing the bill for cuts to local government spending.
The Specsavers corporate website proclaims that the company has given £2.5 million to charities in the last year, which amounts to just 0.14% of the couple’s wealth.
Whilst the billionaire business people avoid the public eye at their residence in the Channel Islands, their employees are still hard at work raising money for charities affected by Coronavirus. Furloughed staff in the Hucknall branch of Specsavers recently took it upon themselves to raise money for Nottingham University Hospital Charities in a socially-distanced sports event.
Doug and Mary Perkins were last heard in the press in March 2019, defending their residence in a tax haven.
