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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the economic recovery looked a little bit brighter this week as growth predictions were upgraded once again. Well good news for the Chancellor of course as he delivered his Autumn Statement but is too much of that recovery based on consumer spending? I’m joined now by the Managing Director of John Lewis, Andy Street, who is well positioned – a very good morning to you Mr Street – well positioned to give us a bit of a snapshot from your perspective, and I’ve got your weekly trading figures here and you can share them with us, that overall they are up 1.8% on last year and a huge boost on the online arm but confirm those for us and tell us what it signifies.

ANDY STREET: Yes, good morning to you. The week’s numbers are indeed 1.8% up on the same week last year, you’ll remember that this week last year when we spoke on the same morning we’d had a great week, 15% so it’s 17 over two years, and within that we’ve had an all-time record online and that reflects the Cyber Sunday and Mega Monday as it’s become known and we are expecting shops to pick up the pace in the next couple of weeks.

DM: Just on the online while we’re discussing it, it also represents that continuing switch to people clicking and maybe collecting or clicking and delivering rather than going into the stores.

ANDY STREET: Well it does on the surface of it but the real story of John Lewis this year is of shops and online growing together, what we call the bricks and clicks approach to retailing. So if we think one of the biggest features of last week actually was a huge surge in click and collect, we saw about a 50% growth in that, so it’s people ordering online but actually using our shops and Partner chain Waitrose shops for convenience, so that’s the big phenomenon that’s going on. So shops are still very, very relevant to the online mission.

DM: Okay, now when did you last see increases like this in percentage terms, Mr Street? You see where I’m going with this, where are the parallels, what part of the past saw something like a 2% increase on a year, 17% over two years?

ANDY STREET: Yes, I can see where you’re going indeed. Actually the story for John Lewis has actually been that four Christmas’s in a row us having numbers of this sort of order so what we’re actually talking about is John Lewis winning share against other competitors, I wouldn’t necessarily think that our numbers are representative of the rest of the retail market. The numbers for the retail market for the whole of the year are about a two and a half percent increase and obviously John Lewis is running about six and a half percent so we are out-performing our competitors and that’s down to this bricks and clicks piece.

DM: Okay, well that’s a very big factor to take in. So you are saying, anticipating the next question, that we are not repeating the mistakes of the past, you don’t see a consumer boom, a debt fuelled recovery here?

ANDY STREET: No, I don’t think that’s right and the evidence of that, as I say, the national figures are more subdued than ours and, more importantly, over the last few years there has been a reduction in consumer debt so it’s not been done in the same way as the mistake that we might talk about in the previous occasion. So it is definitely about a share gain story for us, it’s not about an overheating in any way. The other thing to say about it is people talk about, you know, is it just a London effect, is it overheating and the rest of the country not doing so? Again that’s not what we see, we’re seeing a much more even spread of results across the country.

DM: Yes, you say overheating but is it overheating, not overheating yet? I mean you make a lot out of anticipating future trends, you must have concerns that this may not be sustainable.

ANDY STREET: No, that’s not the case actually. We are looking forward to next year, you’re quite right, we have to do all of our planning on that basis. We’re still seeing in terms of total retail sales a very moderate recovery actually so as you said in the introduction, great news in terms of the Chancellor’s announcement on Thursday confirming an improvement in the run rate of growth but actually we’re still predicting only moderate growth in retail sales next year. It is actually other areas of the economy, including exports, that we need to see for that balanced recovery.

DM: We know much is always made then that when you see the fruits of those profits, you share them very substantially with your staff and your workers but what about those people who work for John Lewis who aren’t on the staff, and I know you’ll know what I’m talking about here, the cleaners who have been leading a campaign to get better paid?

ANDY STREET: Yes, you’re right, our staff will share in the bonus coming up next March but we have lots of people who work around John Lewis, whether they be suppliers, contractors, who actually don’t share in that bonus because they aren’t Partners but they do share in the success of John Lewis in terms of extra business being put to them over the years as we grow, they share in that growth and, in the case of the cleaners, what’s absolutely clear is that we are paying more than what you would describe as the market rate for that job, so there is nothing that John Lewis has to be ashamed of here. We cannot, no business can bring everyone into its direct employ, there isn’t a business in Britain at the moment that could achieve that and be competitive and successful long term.

DM: Okay Mr Street, thank you very much indeed. Managing Director of John Lewis there, Andy Street, thank you very much indeed for joining us from Solihull.