A number of UK retailers, such as Asda, M&S (MKS LN) and Tesco (TSCO LN) have warned PM Burnham against a business rates raid, suggesting that it would undermine their ability to keep prices low and threaten jobs, Sky News reports

Pre-budget lobbying of this kind is a standard feature of UK fiscal cycles: retail trade bodies and named grocers have historically gone public in the run-up to fiscal events whenever business rates, employer costs or sector-specific levies are in scope, using the jobs-and-prices framing as the pressure point. The transmission channel into equities runs through the property-cost line, which for large-format food retail is a material share of the cost base, so the margin impact of any rates change falls unevenly across the peer set: big-box operators and those with heavy out-of-town estates carry the largest exposure, while online-weighted peers are less sensitive. The warning language itself tells little; the tell is whether the Treasury leaves the sector-specific relief structure untouched or targets the multiplier, since past episodes have shown headline relief retained while the underlying burden shifts. Historically, open letters of this sort ahead of a fiscal statement sometimes mark genuine forewarning and sometimes simply position the sector to claim credit for a softer outcome. The follow-ons are any Treasury or ministerial response, other sectors joining the chorus, and the fiscal event itself, with the grocers' commentary at results providing the first quantification of any hit.