- 900% spike in claims for unpaid holiday pay
- Impact of national insurance changes revealed
- Stoneacre profit stable in 2025
- Renault Nissan alliance back on?
- WEEK AHEAD: Automotive Leadership Network meeting
- UK economic growth slows
- Chancellor in stealth savings tax raid
- Retailer hits Porsche with $300m lawsuit
- Volvo suggests ‘best of both worlds’ safety standards
- OPINION: Should the NFDA survey expand its remit?
900% spike in claims for unpaid holiday pay
Workers have been launching a spate of cases around holiday pay claiming they have been underpaid, reports The Sunday Times. Holiday pay complaints at the Employment Tribunal have increased almost nine-fold in the past financial year – causing a backlog.
It follows reforms in early 2024 to simplify holiday pay entitlement through changes to the 1998 Working Time Regulations act. They redefined how holiday pay is calculated for employees who work regular hours, irregular hours and seasonal shits, and also clarified how the ‘normal’ rate of pay should be calculated.
The rise in complains suggest growing confidence among employees about their rights, said commercial law firm Hill Dickinson.
Since 2009, all workers have been entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday leave. Four weeks are paid at the worker’s ‘normal’ rate of pay, including overtime and commission; the remaining 1.6 seeks are paid at the ‘basic’ rate, or the contracted amount per hour of work.
Impact of national insurance changes revealed
As the November budget nears, businesses are still reeling from the chancellor’s hike last year in employers’ national insurance contributions from 13.8% to 15%, along with lowering the threshold at which they are paid from £9,100 to £5,000, reports The Sunday Times.
The £25bn tax raid came alongside a 6.7% increase in the national minimum wage. Since they came into force in April, bosses and economics say the changes have pushed up unemployment and fuelled a resurgence in food inflation. Unemployment for the three months to September rose to 5%.
“There was really very limited scope for employers to plan sensibly for this rise without making quite draconian decisions,” said Louise Jenkins, head of the reward and employment tax team at Alvarez and Marsal. The threshold change “was a complete curveball – we did not see that coming”.
Sainsbury’s has said it will axe 3,000 jobs and Tesco has warned it faces a £235m bill. “Retail has lost almost 100,000 jobs in the last year,” said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium.
The NIC increase has “pushed up inflation more than was acknowledged would happen at the time,” said Andy Goodwin, chief economist at Oxford Economics, “because some firms have had to just push the extra cost down the supply chain to consumers”.
“What concerns me,” said Jenkins, “is that every person losing their job the stops being a taxpayer and starts being a cost.”
Stoneacre profit stable in 2025
Stoneacre recorded a profit before tax of £22.8m for the year ended April 2025, compared to £24.4m in 2025. Turnover grew from £1.39bn to £1.43bn.
To mitigate the effect of the ZEV Mandate and budget, the group says it has reviewed all expenditure but, unlike many other motor retail groups, has not carried out a redundancy programme. “The board has focused on maximising revenue by continuing to operate all sales locations seven days a week and provide weekend vehicle servicing at selected sites, thus maintaining the company’s ‘customer first’ policy.”
The directors highlighted a strengthening balance sheet, which increased from £214m to £231m. The company has no borrowing or gearing.
Stoneacre has embraced new entrants and, going forward, it will represent Jaecoo/Omoda, Chery, Geely and Changan, “all of which will be operational before the end of 2025”.
Renault Nissan alliance back on?
Renault and Nissan are discussing reviving their 26-year alliance, reports the FT. It follows leadership changes at both OEMs and a financial crisis at Nissan.
Earlier this month, new Renault CEO Francois Provost said partnerships were key to remedying Renault’s small scale compared to other European OEMs. Along with Luca de Meo’s departure, this has opened the door to reevaluating the alliance and its benefits.
WEEK AHEAD
Monday & Tuesday, Automotive Leadership Network meeting. New dinner speaker: Rory Bremner. Key discussion topics: Future of motor finance, US trade tariffs, Cyber security and more. Contact Laura Coase for more info.
Wednesday, CPI and RPI
Thursday, Close Brothers AGM
Friday, UK retail sales
Friday, GFK consumer confidence
* Have an event or announcement coming up? Let us know and we will include it for FREE
DATA INSIGHT
UK economic growth slows
0.1%: Worse-than expected growth in Q3 2025, the poorest performance in nearly two years. It is below the 0.3% forecast by the Bank of England. The figures are the last official statistics before Rachel Reeves’ budget.
Chancellor in stealth savings tax raid
£12bn: Extra tax the chancellor will enjoy through freezing the personal savings allowance. Basic rate taxpayers can earn up to £1k in interest tax-free, falling to £500 for higher-rate taxpayers. Additional rate taxpayers get no allowance at all.
It will mean many more savers will need to fill in a tax return to declare any interest – and some may accidentally evade tax through not realising they are meant to be paying it.
GLOBAL AUTO
Retailer hits Porsche with $300m lawsuit
Florida retailer The Collection has filed a £300m lawsuit against Porsche North America, alleging it resorted to “strong-arm” tactics and withheld allocation of cars after it refused to build a standalone showroom, reports the FT. A Miami judge has refused attempts by Porsche AG to recuse itself from the case and it is set to go to trial in March 2026.
Volvo suggests ‘best of both worlds’ safety standards
Volvo safety centre chief Asa Haglund has suggested OEMs take the best of safety standard from Europe and North America to create a set of unified rules. Recent trade tensions and a commitment to work towards “mutual recognition” of safety standards have pressed governments and stakeholders in both regions to consider the question of harmonising standards, reports Automotive News.
OPINION
Should the NFDA survey expand its remit?
In a bid to avoid playing a guessing-game about what’s going to be in the Chancellor’s budget later this month, I’ve spent a fair amount of time diving into the latest NFDA Dealer Attitude Survey that was out this week.
While the NFDA survey ostensibly investigates the OEM-retailer relationship, it’s also a great barometer for the market as a whole.
November’s survey paints a picture of a market that is becoming more polarised by the half-year. At the very top of the table, stability still exists: Lexus has edged back into first place with a modest uplift in sentiment, Kia, Suzuki and Mercedes continue to occupy the upper echelons.
Yet the calm at the summit is potentially misleading.
Beyond that small group of high performers, the rest of the field is increasingly fractious, and the underlying tone of the survey is one of rising tension between manufacturers and their networks.
The average score falling by 0.6 points is the clearest indicator of that shift. In normal times, sentiment rarely moves dramatically; this kind of broad-based decline suggests something deeper than the usual to-and-fro grumbling.
Retailers are contending with tighter margins, a more intense competitive landscape and a mandated EV transition that has created new risks without always delivering the promised rewards.
When pressure builds in showrooms, it inevitably intensifies the scrutiny of NSC support, product availability and remuneration. This survey reflects that reality in stark numbers.
Even brands that have historically enjoyed strong relationships are not immune. Toyota’s notable drop this year, despite Lexus’s success, hints at how volatile sentiment has become.
The volatility doesn’t discriminate by scale or status; it stems from the same underlying market pressures affecting everyone, just felt differently depending on each brand’s product cycle, pricing position and ability to insulate retailers from external shocks.
The result is a landscape where a small cluster at the top can still thrive, but the tiers below are being stretched and reshaped by unprecedented competition. That widening divide matters, because when the distance between satisfied and dissatisfied networks grows quickly the reputational fallout for manufacturers can be difficult to reverse.
This survey isn’t simply a snapshot of dealer mood. It’s a warning the relationship between manufacturers and retailers is under strain at a systemic level.
There are many influencers on that relationship, but there’s one that’s outside everyone’s control and having more impact than ever before; and that’s the legislative pressures. Both OEMs and retailers keep being served change from the Government that adds to the overall strain.
Aside from at an electoral level, there’s little either side can do in the short term to change this. But wouldn’t it be great to see retailers not only score their manufacturer, but also score the government?
Tristan Young
Editorial Director
Get in touch: tristan@autosunday.co.uk
ISSN 2977-6597