Retailers warn Chancellor of high street crisis ahead

Retailers are set to face a "perfect storm of additional costs" as 300,000 jobs will go by 2028 due to the implication of recent budget, retailers have warned Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Under a new body Retail Jobs Alliance (RJA), seven of Britain’s biggest retail chains have united to Reeves that her tax hikes will lead to even more devastating High Street closures and job losses.

According to the RJA’s analysis, at least one in ten retail workers could leave the sector before 2028, amounting to 300,000 staff.

The retailers are calling for shops to be protected from higher business rates, which are commercial property taxes, saying that this change would provide much-needed relief for at-risk stores, enabling them to reinvest in their businesses, retain staff, and grow their footprint on the High Street.

Labour has promised to ‘level the playing field between the High Street and online giants’ by replacing the levy, which is paid on the rateable value of a commercial property.

But under their plans, premises with rateable values of above £500,000 would pay more.

It has depicted this as targeting warehouses used by online shopping giants, but retailers say it would also hit over 4,000 bricks-and-mortar shops.

In the meantime, smaller retailers will pay thousands of pounds more because of a reduction in Covid-era relief from April.

As well as hitting shops with higher rates, the Chancellor announced a £25billion increase in national insurance and an inflation-busting hike in the minimum wage.

Helen Dickinson, boss of the British Retail Consortium, warned that with Reeves’ Budget adding over £7billion to their bills in 2025, retailers face "difficult decisions about future investment".

Confederation of British Industry chief executive Rain Newton-Smith warned businesses are "seriously flagging under the fiscal burden it had to shoulder at the Budget". She is calling for "decisive action’ that must include ‘fixing our punishing business rates system – fast".

RJA, which includes Tesco, Marks & Spencer and B&Q-owner Kingfisher, warned that retailers are facing “a perfect storm” of additional costs from this April.

This comes as M&S chief criticised the government, saying “retail is being raided like a piggy bank and it’s unacceptable”.

“The blunt truth is… the budget means UK retail will get smaller,” M&S chief executive Stuart Machin wrote in The Sunday Times, adding that while Reeves’ long-term growth ambitions are welcome “action [needs to be] taken to encourage growth today”.