The UK’s retail trade association has claimed that 400 large shops, including supermarkets and department stores, could disappear from British High Streets if they are included in the government’s new business rates surtax.

The new surtax applies to premises with a rateable value over £500,000.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned that this could lead to up to 100,000 job losses, with local council business rates receipts from retail falling by “well over £100 million a year.”

While the organisation praised the government's introduction of a new permanent reduction in business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) premises, which is funded by the new, higher business rates tax band on large properties, it called on the chancellor to use the Autumn Budget to deliver the change "without simply shifting the cost onto larger stores".

It said that the government could instead reduce business rates for retail "without cost to the public purse" by removing those stores from the new higher business rates tax band and slightly increasing the rates to be paid by the remaining large properties like office blocks and other big commercial buildings.

“Britain’s largest shops are magnets, pulling people into High Streets, shopping centres and retail parks, supporting thousands of surrounding cafes, restaurants and smaller and independent shops," said Helen Dickinson, chief executive, BRC. "After years of rising costs, far too many stores have disappeared – leaving behind empty shells that once thrived at the heart of our communities.

"Four hundred more large stores could disappear if the Government forces them into its new higher tax band. This would mean up to 100,000 jobs lost, emptier high streets, and less revenue for the Exchequer."

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