Final plea on 'tourist tax' as sales fall for fifth month

LONDON retail bosses issued a last-minute appeal to Jeremy Hunt to restore VAT-free shopping for foreign tourists in the Budget on Wednesday as the latest figures showed a fifth consecutive drop in sales on the high street.

- Jonathan Prynn

Total in-store and online sales dipped by 1.3% on a like-for-like basis in February, continuing a run of declines stretching back to the start of the autumn, according to the high street sales tracker from accounting and consulting firm BDO.

It is the longest run of monthly falls on record outside the pandemic. The fashion sector was particularly badly hit with sales down by almost 5%.

Sophie Michael, head of retail and wholesale at BDO, said: “This run of negative like-for-like sales covers both the build-up to Christmas, which retailers would expect to be their busiest and most profitable period, and the stock clearance period in the new year sales.

“Since we started tracking both online and in-store sales in 2017, the only time we’ve seen results this poor was during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown period, when the majority of non-essential retailers were forced to remain closed.”