// Retail bosses from Tesco, Greggs and Sainsbury’s have warned that rising business rates risk “pushing some retailers under”
// Thursday’s autumn statement is expected to include £20 billion in tax rises
Retail bosses have called on chancellor Jeremy Hunt to freeze business rates in the autumn statement, due to be announced this Thursday.
The chief executives of some of the UK’s leading retailers – including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Greggs and Iceland – said that current business rates were already putting retail businesses “at breaking point”.
Sent by the Retail Jobs Alliance, the letter – which was also addressed to the prime minister Rishi Sunak – urged them to take action, warning that rising business rates “risks pushing some retailers under”.
Thursday’s autumn statement is expected to include £20 billion in tax rises as well as £35 billion of spending cuts.
Subscribe to Retail Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest news straight into your inbox each morning
The letter read: “Without intervention, [business rates] are set to rise with inflation by over 10% in April, the same time as the energy support is set to expire.
“Analysis from our members suggests the real-terms cost impact on shops could be up to 20% due to the impact of inflation and transitional relief. This risks pushing some retailers under and will feed through to inflation.”
Business groups want the government to reconsider the sharp rise in business rates due to come in next April, which is expected to bring in an extra £3bn to the Treasury.
The annual increase in business rates – which was frozen by Sunak for the last two autumn budgets – is governed by the previous September’s level of consumer price inflation, which hit 10.1%.
The BRC recently warned that shop vacancies could begin to rise if business rates increase next spring.
