A UK retail industry veteran who chairs JD Sports and was a long-term executive director of Tesco has warned the UK Government of the danger of talking the UK economy down.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have made a concerted effort to hammer home the poor state of the public finances left by the former Conservative government since coming to power in July, having declared that the new administration is dealing with a £20 billion financial black hole left by its predecessor.

In an exclusive interview with The Herald, Andy Higginson, chairman of the British Retail Consortium, said he was “still in the hopeful stage” that the new Government will bring positive change, declaring that “a lot of the noises they made pre-election were very encouraging”.

But Mr Higginson, a one-time finance chief of Burton Group, said politicians must be aware of the effect that negative rhetoric can have on consumer confidence.

Referencing the Tory party’s austerity programme and the new Labour Government’s messaging on the financial hand it has been dealt, Mr Higginson said: “All politicians… underestimate how much that can impact consumer sentiment. And as people who thrive on positive consumer sentiment, retailers, I think we would like a more positive narrative to emerge, and a bit more optimism."

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Mr Higginson welcomed the new Government’s support for the introduction of new shopworker protections in England and Wales, which will make an assault on a retail worker a standalone offence and scrap the rule under which the theft of items priced under £200 are not investigated.

And he remains hopeful that plans by Ms Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to get the economy firing will yield fruit, highlighting the need to get the London stock market moving and to make it easier for small to medium-sized firms to secure finance.

Mr Higginson said: “There are lots of reasons to be positive and optimistic. There are plenty of reasons to be gloomy. You just need to look at Israel, Ukraine. And you can easily talk yourself into a very gloomy place. But there are also lots of reasons to be positive.

“Some of the reforms they are making – minimum wage has gone up quite a lot, ahead of inflation - and the changes they are going to be making that are going to put more money into the pockets of who they would call ordinary working people, it helps us. A lot of our customers are those people, and so having a bit more cash in their pocket will help the retailer.

“I don’t think we are completely doom and gloom. We are still waiting to see how this Government performs, but still mildly optimistic we will see a better outlook.”

The BRC remains hopeful that the Government will reform both the apprenticeship levy and business rates system, which the retail industry has long been calling for.

Mr Higginson described business rates as a “medieval tax that is well past its sell-by date”.

He said: “The big problem we have – we are not naïve – is that from a revenue point of view it is an easy tax to collect, and so reforming it is difficult. If you are being cynical, you say they are lazy, if you are being positive, you say it is just very difficult. But it is easier for them to leave it alone than to reform it. I wouldn’t say we sympathise with that, but we understand that, and so we have been trying to work with them in a positive way.”

Retailers called on Ms Reeves to slash the tax burden on the industry in a letter signed by more than 70 company bosses this week, amid claims the sector pays proportionally more in taxes than others. The letter, co-ordinated by the BRC, makes the case for the UK Government to introduce a Retail Rates Corrector – in effect a 20% downward adjustment in business rates paid on retail properties – as part of its commitment to reform the system.

Mr Higginson told The Herald: “All we ever crave is a level playing field. All we ever want from government is an environment where you can trade and compete and grow. You don’t want them to do a lot of things for you.

“Retail isn’t an industry that wants subsidies, but we pay massively more in tax than our share of the economy as an industry - one and half, two times as much as other sectors – so all we want is a level playing field with other sectors so that the tax burden falls more evenly.”