Retailers Make Plea Over £8bn Rates Burden

The bosses of the John Lewis Partnership and Sainsbury's have held secret talks with ministers as part of an increasingly frenetic campaign by retailers to curb the multibillion pound cost of business rates.

Sky News has learnt that Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, Mike Coupe, Sainsbury's chief executive, and Helen Dickinson, director-general of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), met the Treasury minister David Gauke last week to urge the Government to restrict the industry's tax burden.

The meeting is understood to have ended without any commitment from Mr Gauke to re-examine the issue despite the BRC's disclosure of figures showing that retailers face an additional £14bn bill over five years from new policy announcements made since the General Election.

Retail executives are furious that a Government commitment to devolve decision-making on business rates has not been accompanied by a full review of the system.

In a speech on Monday, Dave Lewis, the Tesco chief executive, described business rates as "unsustainable and in need of urgent reform".

"Over the last five years property values have fallen, profits are down but business rates are up," he said.

"Business rates have hit £8bn for retail. That’s over a quarter of the bill and significantly more than any other sector."

Mr Lewis added that Tesco's business rates bill had increased by well over 35% during the last five years, saying it was now the biggest tax paid by the company.

Mr Coupe and Mr Mayfield are understood to have attended the meeting with Mr Gauke hopeful that the industry's message would be heeded ahead of this month's Autumn Statement.

However, speaking to the CBI's annual conference on Monday, David Cameron said the "overall burden" of rates was unlikely to fall.

In a submission to the Treasury, the BRC urged ministers to consider short-term reforms such as more regular revaluations of rates and the rollover of reliefs.

"Our industry is changing very quickly and we need to have more dynamism in the system even if it is not yet possible to make the more radical changes needed to the structure of taxation."

Spokesmen for the BRC, John Lewis Partnership and Sainsbury's declined to comment on what they said was a private meeting.