According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), retailers’ viability and retail jobs will be put at risk if the Government continues to increase costs as trading conditions worsen.

Updating its submission to the Chancellor ahead of the Pre-Budget Report (PBR), the BRC has warned that ‘fiscal stimulation’ should not be confined to cuts in personal taxation because businesses need help too. Retailers are on the verge of being hit with a series of substantial business rate increases. These will come at a time when their margins are being squeezed dangerously by tough trading conditions.

The BRC has called on Alistair Darling to reduce local tax burden by implementing an affordable increase in business rates in 2009 and not one based on September’s, 17-year high, Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation of 5%; to not extend local tax raising powers such as business rate supplements (BRS); to re-introduce Empty Property Rates Relief and to postpone Business Rates Revaluation, currently planned for 2010. It also wants to ensure measured pay deals – that the national minimum wage increases are kept within average earnings growth particularly when trading conditions are tough.

Stephen Robertson, BRC’s director general, said: “Retailers are crucial to jobs, customers and communities. In recession our role is even more important. Government should be helping, not hindering. The Chancellor must use the Pre-Budget Report to reduce present and future costs.”