'Exempt us from business rate hikes or households are going to suffer', supermarkets warn Chancellor

The supermarket bosses appealed to Ms Reeves over two-tier business rates mooted at last year’s Budget and expected to be confirmed next month.

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These would see smaller premises with rateable values below £500,000 pay one rate from April, while those that are bigger would be billed a higher one, the surtax.

The Government says this would include the likes of Amazon warehouses. And the Treasury said tackling food price inflation was a “priority,” leading to a cut in business rates for “butchers, bakers and other shops”. But the supermarkets say larger shops are a “tiny proportion of all stores, yet account for a third of retail’s total business rates”. The row blew up after annual food inflation remained high last month at 4.5%.

Beneath the headline figure, the cost of many staple goods spiked, with butter prices up by 19%, milk 12%, and chocolate and coffee leaping 15%.