ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES ON 23.08.25
OpEd by Alex Baldock, Currys CEO
The current business rates system disincentivises investment, creates uncertainty and places an undue burden on our high streets.” Words you might expect from a retail chief executive — but they’re from last year’s Labour manifesto. They were music to retailers’ ears. For years we’ve argued ourselves hoarse that the outdated and iniquitous rates system makes no sense, penalising retailers who create millions of good jobs and pay their fair share of taxes. At last someone was listening.
“Labour will replace the business rates system, so we can raise the same revenue but in a fairer way. This new system will level the playing field between the high street and online giants, better incentivise investment, tackle empty properties and support entrepreneurship.” Amen to that — we couldn’t have put it better.
Big retailers like Currys were excitedly drawing up plans to step up investment, create more jobs and revitalise more high streets, based on promised business rates relief. So picture our surprise, when the government revealed its reforms: that “relief” turned out to mean higher bills.
As The Times reported last week, this has caused much angst in our sector. Retailers have shown remarkable resilience in weathering a barrage of new taxes, but the government shouldn’t imagine this can go on for ever. Heaping yet more costs on an already over-burdened sector will mean higher prices, lower investment, fewer jobs and more boarded-up shops. Nor will higher rates for big retailers help smaller retailers, as the government claims: big retailers anchoring our high streets are the ones generating the visits that in turn drive footfall to smaller stores. All will suffer.
The government agrees that the current rates system is broken. But it won’t be fixed by shuffling costs between different-sized retailers. What’s needed is a fundamental rebalancing of the system. And there’s a way of doing this that’s revenue neutral for the Treasury, by taking shops out of the higher tax band altogether.
The UK needs more people back to work, and more growth. Retail is best placed to help, as the UK’s biggest private sector employer by far, as the sector of choice for entry-level work, and where productivity is growing at twice the national average. We’re the engine room of the economy, and stand ready to help, to hire more people, and to power growth. Instead, many existing jobs are already at risk from burdensome new taxes and red tape. We ask government, for everyone’s sake, not to add to that burden with higher rates. We ask them to make good on their own manifesto.
Alex Baldock is chief executive of Currys