OPINION: Spring Statement was damp squib for retailers – James Lowman, chief executive, ACS

This year’s Spring Statement was supposed to mark the first ‘peacetime’ fiscal event for a chancellor that had, up to the end of 2021, been dealing with the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on the UK and extraordinary policies like the furlough scheme.

However, with inflation soaring, the war in Ukraine and a looming enormous increase in energy bills, the 2022 Spring Statement was anything but routine.