SAINSBURY’s and Morrisons are set to hand back a collective £714million saved from the government’s business rates holiday.
It comes a day after Tesco said it’d return £585million it saved thanks to the support to help struggling retailers.
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Overall, Sainsbury’s will hand back around £440million and Morrisons will return £274million.
Yesterday, Tesco chairman John Allan said the board “are conscious of our responsibilities to society” and that the company did not need the saving due to remaining open and trading strongly throughout the pandemic.
The moves come as supermarkets face growing calls to hand back the savings which were aimed at helping retailers unable to open and struggling to make ends meet.
Data compiled last month for the PA news agency by real estate adviser Altus Group projected that the UK’s four largest grocers – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – and German rivals Aldi and Lidl would save around £1.87 billion as a result of the rates holiday.
This was set to represent more than a sixth of the total £10.1 billion rates bill which has been written off for all businesses during the year.
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