Motorpoint chief executive Mark Carpenter has vowed to give-up his own income from the used car supermarket business in order to top-up the wages of ‘furloughed’ staff during the COVID-19 coronavirus lockdown.

The boss of the ID50’s top independent car trader by turnover said that he would forego his usual income from the business as part of a bid to ensure that none of its staff placed on the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme earned less than the real living wage.

Motorpoint’s executive team and operational directors have also agreed to take voluntary pay cuts to support the wider workforce.

• AM is urging car retailers to share their experience of handling the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak with a quick-fire, three-minute, multiple choice survey. Please click here to take part.

Carpenter said: “At Motorpoint we have always set out to do things differently from the rest of the industry.

“Our values of Proud, Happy, Honest and Supportive lead our culture and our incredible team spirit is why we’ve been named one of the Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For in each of the past six years.

“That does not change just because we find ourselves in challenging times, and we will continue to go above and beyond to support our people.

“We have furloughed all site-based employees and the vast majority of our office-based teams. What we are also doing is topping up salaries to ensure no one receives less than the real living wage.

“To support this salary top up I will be giving up my salary during this time, and all our executive team and operational directors have agreed to take voluntary pay cuts.”

Campaigns got underway across the automotive retail sector this week to urge Government to address the terms of its income-preserving salary scheme, which omits commission payments from its vow to pay 80% of “furloughed workers’” average monthly wage up to a limit of £2,500.

AM reported this morning that a petition set up by the Independent Motor Dealers Association (IMDA) to argue that commission payments from car sales should be included in the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme wage calculations has attracted almost 8,000 signatures in less than two days.

Marshall chief executive, Daksh Gupta, told AM last week that his business would be paying employees 90% of their salary in a bid to maintain their income during the lockdown period.

Motorpoint boss, Carpenter, said that “team wellbeing is our priority” during the coronavirus lockdown period, adding that all employees would have access to the group’s 24-hour employee assistance programme help centre for any specialist emotional support they may need.

“We also have a suite of wellbeing and support tools for coping with self-isolation that the team can access from home via our web-based learning system,” he said.

“For all of us, this past week has been one of incredible change and disruption to our daily lives.

“It goes without saying that in the lifetime of Motorpoint we have never had to react so quickly and take such drastic measures to prepare our business for such an unprecedented situation.”