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.
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”.
He added that the supermarket didn’t need the saving due to remaining open and trading strongly throughout the pandemic.
Morrisons was then first to follow its rival’s move, with chief executive David Potts saying the supermarket was “grateful for the government’s swift action at the start of the pandemic”.
The decisions have led to calls for other supermarkets to make similar commitments.
There are also calls for the money to be handed to the pub sector, which is struggling hardest from the new restrictions.
New data from real estate adviser Altus Group shows “essential” retailers enjoyed savings of £3.03billion thanks to the business rates relief.
The support was aimed at helping retailers unable to open and struggling to make ends meet.
Meanwhile, data by Altus Group last month projected that the UK’s four largest grocers – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – and German rivals Aldi and Lidl would save around £1.87billion 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.
Rates relief was first announced by the Chancellor for retail, leisure and hospitality firms until March 2021.
The figures from Altus show Asda is projected to save £297 million, Aldi £109 million and Lidl £108 million, for the year.
Last month, Sainsbury’s said it had received a break worth £230million for the half-year to September in an update which also saw it reveal plans to axe 3,500 jobs.
However, the company came under fierce criticism as it also declared an interim dividend of 3.2p plus a special dividend of 7.3p for shareholders.
