Overview

• The Treasury plans to target properties with rateable values above £500,000 to fund £1.7bn of permanent lower business rates for smaller retail and hospitality premises and increase levies on major distribution centres.
• Property specialists estimate more than 100 large supermarket outlets could become loss-making, including about 50 Sainsbury’s, 30 Morrisons and roughly 540 Asda stores.
• Smaller-format discounters such as Aldi and Lidl are expected to escape most of the impact because their sites typically fall below the threshold.
• Tesco’s chief executive Ken Murphy and Morrisons’ Rami Baitiéh have urged the government to phase or defer the measures, warning they exacerbate margin pressures from earlier tax and wage increases.
• Retail trade bodies caution that stripping relief from large-format stores risks denting high-street footfall and triggering further job cuts.