John Lewis Partnership boss Nish Kankiwala has blasted the government for making a “two-handed grab” from businesses following its decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions and delay business rates reform.
The chief executive told The Financial Times that the John Lewis and Waitrose owner, which swung to profit last year, faces “tens of millions” in additional costs from next year.
Kankiwala said the Partnership was shocked by the measures announced, which also included lowered earnings threshold for NI contributions, but acknowledged that the government faced difficult decisions.
He said the government should look at “radical change in business rates” because “that looks like it is going up for us, as is our people costs”.
“That seems to be, you know, sort of [a] two-handed grab, and that’s unhelpful.”
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“If they could delay the national insurance [changes], but also if they could fundamentally bring forward a radical reshaping of business rates, I think it will make a massive difference,” he claimed.
Kankiwala said the business would look to mitigate the impact on prices from consumers after a year of record high inflation.
“The last thing we need is a resurgence of inflation, because we just got that under control, and inflation is not good for anybody…We will try and control [pricing] as much as possible,” he said.
Kankiwala’s warning of increasing cost pressures come as the business said it was on track to deliver “significantly higher” full-year profit after it had slashed its pre-tax losses from £59m to £30m in the 26 weeks ending on 27 July.
He insisted that John Lewis, which is investing £542m into operations this year, would not “see any change in our strategy and investment or in terms of our future growth” despite facing higher costs.
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