Usdaw General Secretary Joanne Thomas and Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium, have issued a joint appeal to Chancellor to protect shops from business rates
Retail is the UK’s biggest private-sector employer.
Nearly three million people work in Britain’s shops, warehouses, transport, and headquarters. 365,000 of them are members of Usdaw, from those seeking flexibility to balance other commitments such as being a parent or carer, to long-serving retail workers, some of whom have worked their way up to management roles with little or no qualifications.
Add the farmers, drivers, warehouse workers and service providers in the supply chain and retail sits at the heart of the everyday economy. But things have not been easy.
Over the last decade 350,000 retail jobs have gone, with 100,000 lost in the past year alone. More than 10,000 shops closed last year. Every lost job is a family’s income hit. Every lost job is a blow to our high street.
The Government has plans to support retail, hospitality and leisure through a new permanent business rates reduction. This is welcome and well overdue.
Retail makes up just 5% of the economy, yet pays over 20% of all business rates, the tax on all commercial properties. That imbalance punishes the shops that keep our communities going which is why it is vital the changes to business rates fix this unfairness.
To fund the changes, the Treasury is considering increasing business rates for any large non- domestic premises, from office blocks to banks. But this increased tax – intended to support the reduction for our high street premises – could also catch thousands of larger stores. It could hit the very supermarkets and anchor stores that employ a third of the people in retail and attract customers onto our high streets.
For those larger shops it could mean fewer hours for employees, and the risk of more shuttered shops and job losses. We also know what it would mean for prices.
Retailers work hard to hold down costs for as long as possible, but when costs keep rising, prices are pushed up. Working people – union members, Daily Mirror readers – end up paying more at the till. Nobody wins.
It is a mistake to think big stores can just “take it”. Costs have surged – energy, transport, the costs of keeping retail workers safe from spiralling violence and abuse. Add more tax and something has to give.
We’ve all seen the gap left by the empty department store and how it leaves a scar on the high street. Even when stores can avoid closing, it can mean fewer hours for employees, fewer opportunities for training, and slower pay progression.
When a larger store cuts back, the café next door, the barber and the chemist all feel it – because when investment is lost, so too is the footfall.
Let’s put fairness at the heart of the Autumn Budget, back good jobs and raise living standards. Let’s not balance the books on the backs of retail workers.
There is a way to achieve just that – one that helps keep shopping bills down and does not risk local flexible jobs. And importantly, would not cost the Treasury a single penny extra.
Government should exclude shops from the new higher business rates band and instead, slightly increase the rates paid by large office blocks and other big commercial buildings, where business rates are a much smaller share of costs and the knock-on impact on jobs and prices is far lower. Same money for the Exchequer, less damage to working people.
We all want a bright future for our towns and cities. We all want a much better deal for retail workers with well-paid, secure local jobs, available to us in every corner of the country. We all want to see investment in our high streets, our shopping centres, our retail parks.
And we all want to see value for money in our weekly shopping. But this is only possible if businesses are able to invest. Usdaw and the British Retail Consortium stand ready to help deliver that future. It starts with a simple decision in this Autumn’s Budget: protect shops and the people who work in them.
This means delivering a meaningful and permanent reduction in business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure premises with a rateable value under £500,000. And, ensure no shop ends up paying more as a result, raising the same revenue but in a fairer way.”
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