Top retailers lobby Government to reverse rate rise

Store chiefs including Debenhams chief executive Rob Templeman, Home Retail boss Terry Duddy and Arcadia owner Sir Philip Green are concerned that the rate rise will add millions of pounds to costs and pile pressure on retailers already experiencing the toughest trading conditions in memory.

New Look chief executive Phil Wrigley told the Daily Telegraph that the Government was “playing Robin Hood” by taking cash from one industry while bailing out others.

The retailers will also say that three other measures – the planned Business Rate Supplements Bill, next year’s rating revaluation on commercial properties and newly introduced increased rates on empty shops – represent further unwelcome burdens.

Tesco executive director of corporate and legal affairs Lucy Neville-Rolfe said: “The Government could really help by being proactive in this area. I believe that the increase in rates could risk a retail collapse, with the double whammy of a rise in business rates of five per cent this year and the rating revaluation next year.”

Wrigley said: “It is clear that this is a significant amount of revenue that the Government is calling in.

“But it goes in the face of what it is doing elsewhere by bailing out industries. It is an inflation-busting increase and it is without foundation given that the property market has collapsed.”