Tesco to pay back £585m of Covid business rates relief

Good on Tesco. It’s up for debate whether they should have got the relief in the first place (with no strings!), but that’s on the government.

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They crumbled to pressure and bad press not exactly good on them, they could have given it back at any point but let it drag on and on. Only hope is it shames the best of the supermarkets into giving back what they didn’t really need.

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Or they could have just shrugged and kept it. I don’t think they crumbled to pressure but they obviously judged that on balance the non-financial benefits of paying it back were worthwhile. Maybe they did the right thing for the wrong reasons, but that’s good enough for me.

No one else felt any pressure to pay it back, so if they now do that’s down to Tesco making the first move.

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I can tell you Tesco are absolutely appalling and have very questionable ethics so if they thought they could get away with keeping 50p they would…

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Tesco with its billions shouldn’t really have taken it in the first place.

I think they have just jumped before being made to give it back, and make it look like they are the good guys or doing us a favour.

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Morrisons has jumped on the same bandwagon now

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Sainsbury’s and Aldi also following suit, suspect the rest will crumble in the next day or 2

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And they did it because Tesco voluntarily went first. Is there any evidence that they would / could have been made to pay it back against their will?