Why loss-making John Lewis needed Rishi Sunak’s help despite Waitrose surge

The partnership is planning to close more stores, and while it made a trading profit before a huge write-down that was only because of government support such as the business rate holiday, writes James Moore

John Lewis is set to close more of its stores as it grapples with the impact of the pandemic (PA)

When the supermarkets were bounced into paying back the business rate holidays they didn’t need, amid surging sales and bumper profits, there was one notable exception: Waitrose. 

The supermarket chain has done well through the course of the pandemic, as has the whole sector. Its online arm is positively booming.

But it’s in a different category to its peers through being part of the John Lewis Partnership, which has just announced that it lost more than half a billion pounds over its most recent financial year and warned that at least some of its shuttered stores will never reopen.