Labour’s economic nightmare before Christmas as shoppers close their wallets: Retailers blame the Budget as sales fall for the third month in a row while families wait for bargains [Video]

09:12 EST 20 Dec 2024, updated 10:36 EST 20 Dec 2024

Labour’s Budget is being blamed for a sluggish Christmas shopping period as shops struggle to get hard-pressed families to part with their cash.

The Confederation of Business Industry (CBI) today said retailers were enduring ‘a gloomy festive period’ with a fall in year-on-year sales in December to date.

It is the third month in a row its distributive trades survey has found year-on-year sales below 2023 levels. 

And it comes as wider retail sales figures for November released by the Office for National Statistics today showed sluggish growth.

Food sales underpinned a 0.2 per cent rise in business, lower than the 0.5 per cent rebound forecast by economist, after retail sales fell 0.5 per cent in October.

Among the areas badly hit were clothes and shoe sales, which were down 2.6 per cent.

The ONSalso found that online sales were down across the board in November, though its figures …