The former boss of Iceland warned Parliament today that business rates are putting tens of thousands of small businesses at risk of bankruptcy.
Bill Grimsy, who published an independent review into the retail industry earlier this year, said current businesess, rates which have not changed since 2008, were unaffordable despite falling rent prices in much of Britain since then.
Grimsy said rates are “causing many independent retailers in this country to undergo financial pressures which they will not survive.
"It doesn’t matter how good their product is. There are 20,000 retailers out there who are poised to fail because of the business rates.”
He criticised the government’s decision to postpone the rates revaluation from 2015 to 2017, arguing that it would unfairly help large retailers, saving Britain’s biggest supermarkets £1.3 billion in tax, whilst punishing small independent businesses.
Speaking to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee Mr Grimsey said: “Why should an upmarket shop on Regent Street be subsidised by a poor fish and chip shop in the north of England? It’s fundamentally wrong and it needs to be changed.”
