Tesco chief executive blames business rates for demise of retailers

THE HEAD of the UK’s biggest supermarket has said business rates have played a large part in the demise of some retailers.

Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis suggested the current regime created an “uneven playing field” putting traditional retailers at a punitive disadvantage.

With the tax costing the giant more than £700m a year, he said a balance needed to be struck between the digital and traditional worlds of retail.

The business leader made the comments to the BBC as workers and shoppers reeled from the news that House of Fraser was planning to shut 31 outlets, leaving 6,000 jobs at risk.

The closures, which account for more than half of the chain’s 59-store estate across the UK, are the latest in a raft of similar measures taken by companies as they struggle with rising business rates, labour costs, competition from online rivals and a slowdown in consumer spending.

Labour has accused the Government of presiding over “high street annihilation”, and said that its failure to ensure a fair business rates system partly to blame for the situation.

Mr Lewis asked: “Are we allowing it to stay competitive, or are we by stealth lowering corporation tax and increasing business rates to a place which is creating an uneven playing field and forcing people to think about how it is they avoid that cost and find other routes to the market?”

He is the latest boss of Britain’s so-called Big Four supermarkets to criticise the current rates system.

The chief executive of Sainsbury’s, Mike Coupe, described the current system as “archaic”.

He called for “fundamental reforms” in comments made in 2017.