Coventry IKEA Store Closure — House of Commons, 2020-02-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): I am very pleased to have secured my first Adjournment debate, and on a topic of real importance to my constituency. The Tuesday before last, IKEA announced that it will be closing its flagship store in Coventry this summer, putting 352 jobs at risk. The store is in the city centre, at the northernmost point of my constituency. The announcement came out of the blue for many, including its workers Coventrians have been in touch with me to express their shock and sadness at the announcement. Over 3,300 people have signed an online petition calling for the store to stay open. People have expressed their "devastation" at its loss, seeing it as "an iconic part" of the city’s landscape. It has been part of the city’s scene since 2007, when it became IKEA’s first city centre shop. It is indeed distinctive; its blue and grey walls, standing seven floors tall, can be seen from a distance. Since it opened, it has become a major site in the city’s shopping ecosystem, attracting people from across the region to the heart of Coventry. Its closure will be felt hard by the city—mostly, of course, by the workers and their families, who risk their livelihoods being devastated, but also by the many people who enjoyed spending time in its café, the small businesses that benefited from the people it attracted to the city, and the many students who relied upon it to fit out their university rooms. A friend even told me how sorely she would miss its meatballs The closure speaks to two much broader trends that have significance for Coventry and beyond. The first is the rise and fall of industry and the effects of what we now see in Coventry and across the midlands and the north: deindustrialisation. Where we now have low-paid and insecure retail jobs, there was once strongly unionised, relatively well-paid and stable employment Industry has always come and gone in Coventry. As with capitalism generally, it uses, exploits and discards working people as it pleases. This was true with the textile industry in the 17th century, which began with the labour of Huguenot refugees and at its height employed 25,000 people in the city, only later to crash and leave workers ruined. It was also true of the manufacturing of cycles and clocks, which in the late 19th and early 20th century became the backbone of the city’s industry. By the mid-20th century it was the motor industry that was booming, this time on the back of Irish migrants, and it provided the city’s working class with work By the 1970s, Jaguar, Standard-Triumph and Alvis all had manufacturing plants in what was then dubbed "Britain’s Detroit". With it there came good, unionised jobs and Coventry enjoyed relative prosperity. However, as had happened to the industries before it, at the whims of bosses in search of cheaper labour, much of the motor industry moved abroad, again leaving the city’s working class abandoned. Unemployment exceeded 20%, and by the early 1990s discontent triggered riots across the city. This abandonment was felt so much that it is even said that the city’s very own The Specials based their classic "Ghost Town" on the sense of loss felt in the city The city has never fully recovered from deindustrialisation because today there are not the mass, well-paid, highly-skilled and secure employment opportunities for kids growing up in Coventry. This is clearly shown by the fact that where the IKEA store stands today there once stood the site of a General Electric Company factory.