Retailers urge Burnham to slash tax and back youth employment
Retailers have called on Andy Burnham to slash their taxes and help them to employ young people in a raft of demands for the Prime Minister-to-be.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC), a trade body representing the UK’s biggest retailers, has urged Burnham to “buy into retail” as part of his pledge to back local communities and high streets.
The UK’s retail leaders have piled criticism onto the government in recent months for raising business rates, minimum wages and national insurance contributions (NICs), claiming that these tax hikes are putting the survival of the British high street at risk.
The BRC is in talks with Burnham’s team over its demands, which include reversing the hikes to wages and NICs and slashing business rates.
High streets ‘central to Burnham’s vision’
“Andy Burnham has made collaborating with business to drive growth, high streets, and living standards central to his ambition,” said Helen Dickinson, the BRC’s chief executive.
“Retail is a key partner to deliver it: with the right policies, retail can drive investment, support jobs in every postcode, and keep household essentials affordable,” she added.
During his major policy speech in Manchester last month, in which Burnham set out some of his policy agenda for government, the Prime Minister-to-be pledged a high street “renaissance” and spoke of the importance of local businesses and communities.
The BRC said these businesses are crying out for more support. Retailers have absorbed £6.5bn in extra employment costs since 2024, the trade body said, on top of rising business rates and new packaging taxes.
Retailers’ central demand to Burnham revolves around the youth unemployment crisis, which they say has been worsened by recent increases to employment costs – which the BRC says must be reversed.
Business rates ‘slow growth and innovation’
Burnham should also launch a task force in collaboration with retailers, aimed at expanding routes for young people into employment, the BRC said.
Earlier this year, a review by former health secretary Alan Milburn found that the welfare state and social media are to blame for the nearly 1m young people who are not in education, work or training.
The BRC is also urging Burnham to slash business rates. “When rates are high, retailers hire and invest less, growth and innovation slows, and shoppers pay higher prices,” it claims.
Retailers pay 75 per cent of their profits in tax and their business rates bills have climbed by £1.8bn in the last two years, the trade body said.
The Makerfield MP has already committed to expanding business rates relief to more small companies, in exchange for hiking tax on out-of-town warehouses.
Burnham is also facing calls from other trade bodies to cut bricks and mortar companies’ business rates bills by 37 per cent in exchange for a two per cent levy on online sales.