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GO WEST London no place for ambition, says US-bound Tevva boss
HUNT FACES CALLS TO SCRAP BUSINESS RATES HIKE CHARLIE CONCHIE SOME of Britain’s biggest retailers have piled pressure on the Chancellor to scrap a planned hike in business rates today as the sector faces down a £400m bill next year. A group of 44 retail bosses, including the chiefs of Tesco, M&S and B&Q, have written to Jeremy Hunt urging him to shelve a planned hike in business rates in April next year, which they say could choke off the industry’s ability to invest. Business rates – the rate of tax that firms pay on their property – are due to be hiked next year in line with September’s inflation print, which analysts are predicting will come in at around six per cent. In the letter, co-ordinated by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), retail chiefs warned the rise could threaten “the viability of many shops”.
“Global supply chain issues are already likely to increase costs in the months ahead, including Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and targeting of Ukrainian grain silos, plus restrictions on Indian rice exports and ongoing labour market challenges,” they wrote. “Against this backdrop, the government should not make the situation worse by adding significantly to our cost base – freezing the business rates multiplier at its current level would avoid this,” they added. Bosses, including Tesco’s UK and Ireland chief executive officer Jason Tarry, Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon Roberts and Greggs chief executive Roisin Currie, are among those who have backed the calls. The BRC warned that the tax hike would add more than £400m a year to their business rates bills annually and would likely force them to raise
prices in their stores. A warning of further price rises is likely to unsettle the government as the Prime Minister and Chancellor aim to hit their target of halving inflation this year. The government has frozen planned hikes in business rates multiple times before. An inflation-linked rise to business rates was due to take place in April this year, but the plan was ultimately shelved by the government. Responding to the fresh calls to for a freeze, a spokesperson for the Treasury told City A.M.: “The multiplier has been frozen for three consecutive years at an overall cost of £14.5bn. “We have also provided 75 per cent relief for retail, hospitality and leisure properties, a tax cut worth over £2bn for around 230,000 businesses”. However, the spokesperson added that “all taxes are kept under review”.
GUY TAYLOR THE CHAIR of electric truck supplier Tevva Motors has bemoaned London markets as “risk averse” as the firm looks to head across the pond via a merger with the Nasdaq-listed carmaker Electra Meccanica. “If you want to get capital, you've got to go west, you really have got to go west,” David Roberts, who helped found the business as its first investor over a decade ago, told City A.M. “London as a place is very risk averse, it always looks at the downside model, it always looks at the risk significance,” he said, while in America, “you find in the main people saying, well, how big can you grow
this business? How much capital do you need to be really, really big… the whole culture is built around this big ambition.” Tevva, a taxpayer-backed UK startup that produces electric and hydrogenpowered trucks, announced the merger plans last month. Talking about the move, Tevva’s outgoing chair commented on London’s investment climate, which he believed had become increasingly inhospitable for tech companies and startups. “If Elon Musk had been born a Brit, he wouldn’t have raised a penny,” Roberts said. £ CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
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