SAINSBURY’S, Asda and Aldi are returning almost £900 million in business rates relief they received from the UK and devolved governments during the Covid-19 crisis.
It follows news on Wednesday that Tesco and Morrisons are giving back £585m and £274m respectively in business rates relief.
This means five of the UK’s major supermarket chains are now refunding more than £1.7 billion in coronavirus support to the public purse.
Supermarkets have been criticised for taking government support while paying dividends to shareholders and enjoying bumper sales.
“With regional restrictions likely to remain in place for some time, we believe it is now fair and right to forgo the business rates relief that we have been given on all Sainsbury’s stores,” said Simon Roberts, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s. It is forgoing £440m of rates relief and hoped this could help non-essential retailers and other businesses forced to close in the second lockdown.
Asda is returning £340m. It said costs such as shielding colleagues on full pay, making its stores Covid secure and supporting charity work had far outweighed the relief it received this year.
Asda President and chief executive, Roger Burnley, added: “Almost half our customers are telling us they expect their financial position to worsen in the next 12 months and we recognise that there are other industries and businesses for whom the effects of Covid-19 will be much more long lasting and whose survival is essential to thousands of jobs.” The chain will discuss with the government and devolved authorities how best to ensure the relief can go towards helping those that need it most.
Aldi is waiving £100m. Its UK chief executive Giles Hurley said: “Thanks to our amazing colleagues, we have been able to remain open during lockdowns and despite the increased costs we have incurred during the pandemic, we believe returning the full value of our business rates relief is the right decision to help support the nation.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here