Debenhams criticises chancellor over VAT rise

Debenhams chief executive, Rob Templeman, has made it clear he’s standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow retailers in lambasting the Government’s plan to implement the scheduled VAT increase (back to 17.5 per cent) on New Year’s Day. Asserting that chancellor Alistair Darling’s universally criticized decision is a “complete misjudgement”, pointing out that for Debenhams to change every price in all of its 155 stores at that time would take 250,000 man hours.

Emphasising how unhelpful and probably detrimental the move will be to retailers at their key trading time, Templeman added that the entire proposal was: “complete nonsense in terms of timing….every retailer has voiced their concern about this.”

Well, you know, Shop has said it before and we’ll say it again: “Give it up Al!”