M&S chief criticises budget but welcomes expected UK-EU food deal

Marks & Spencer chief executive Stuart Machin has criticised the Labour government’s latest budget as a “whole lot of nothing”, arguing that it failed to address the issues needed to support growth. His comments, reported by The Guardian as the retailer revealed half-year results, contrasted with his welcome for an expected UK-EU agreement on food border checks.

Machin said he was disappointed by the previous week’s budget statement and described businesses as facing an “onslaught of taxation and regulation”. He said the package “didn’t really address the issues we need to focus on growth”, putting the emphasis on the operating environment for retailers rather than any individual measure alone.

Business rates were a specific point of contention, with Machin saying the chancellor’s “real terms” freeze would still increase M&S’s costs. According to his assessment, the measure would add £10 million to the company’s existing £170 million rates bill, illustrating why he did not regard the announcement as sufficient relief.

Those figures put the projected increase at roughly 6% of the existing bill, although the supplied report does not explain the calculation behind the additional charge. The distinction between a freeze described in real terms and the amount a business ultimately pays is central to Machin’s criticism: he was judging the policy by its expected cash cost to M&S.

His remarks place business taxation alongside regulation in the retailer’s assessment of government policy. However, the available report does not identify the particular regulatory measures behind his broader complaint or provide a breakdown of their costs, so the business rates estimate is the clearest quantified example supporting his criticism.

Machin took a more positive position on the prospect of a UK-EU food agreement addressing border checks. That welcome shows his response was not uniformly negative: while attacking the budget’s approach to domestic business costs, he supported the expected trade-related development as a separate issue affecting the retailer.

The agreement remained an expectation in the supplied account, rather than a completed change whose effects could be measured. No implementation timetable, detailed terms or estimate of savings for M&S was provided, leaving the scale of any benefit uncertain and preventing a direct comparison with the additional rates cost Machin cited.

The comments accompanied M&S’s half-year results, but the supplied excerpt contains no sales or profit figures with which to assess the retailer’s performance. The next points to watch are whether the expected border-check agreement is finalised and how the budget measures translate into actual costs, against the concerns Machin has set out.