Retail giants including Asda, Marks & Spencer, Primark and Tesco will mount a new year campaign to warn Rachel Reeves that plans to hike business rates on larger shops will put jobs and stores under threat.

Sky News has learnt that some of Britain’s biggest chains – which also include J Sainsbury, Morrisons and Kingfisher-owned B&Q – have agreed to revive a group called the Retail Jobs Alliance (RJA).

Sources said the RJA, which was established to push for reform of Britain’s archaic business rates regime, is expected to engage with the Treasury in the coming weeks to say that a wave of tax rises and regulatory changes will threaten investment by major retailers in economically deprived areas of the country.

They intend to produce analysis showing many of the stores with so-called rateable values above a new £500,000 threshold are located in areas which rely on retailers for employment opportunities.

The revamped coalition is expected to be launched in January and is likely to include other high street names, according to insiders.

It is said to be coordinating its plans with the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the industry’s leading trade body.

In total, the RJA’s members employ more than a million people across Britain and account for a significant proportion of the stores with rateable values in excess of the proposed threshold.

One source close to the group’s plans said it intended to highlight that the higher business rates multiplier contradicted Labour’s manifesto pledge to “[level] the playing field between high street and online retailers”.

The latest intervention by retail bosses will come after weeks of vocal complaints about the impact of Ms Reeves’s maiden budget on the sector.

Last month, a letter signed by dozens of industry chiefs including from Boots and Next said the budget would pile £7bn of extra costs on to them.

These included a £2.3bn hit from changes to employers’ national insurance, £2.73bn from an increase in the national living wage and a £2bn packaging levy bill.

Retailers have since queued up to warn that consumers will face rising prices when the tax changes come into force in April.

Stuart Machin, the M&S chief executive, and Andrew Higginson, the JD Sports Fashion and BRC chair, have been among those publicly critical of the new measures.

Tesco alone faces having to pay £1bn in extra employer national insurance contributions during this parliament.

This week, ShoeZone, a footwear chain, said it would close 20 shops as a result of poor trading and the increased costs announced in the budget.

The hospitality industry has also highlighted the possibility of price hikes and job losses after the chancellor delivered her statement on 30 October.

In response to the growing business backlash, Ms Reeves told the CBI’s annual conference last month that she was “not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes”.

The RJA was initially put together in 2022 by WPI Strategy, a London-based public affairs firm.

None of the members of the RJA contacted by Sky News this weekend would comment.

The UK’s retail sales recovery was smaller than expected in the key Christmas shopping month of November, official figures show.

Retail sales rose just 0.2% last month despite discounting events in the run-up to Black Friday. It followed a 0.7% fall seen in October, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Sales growth of 0.5% had been forecast by economists.

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Behind the fall was a steep drop in clothing sales, which fell 2.6% to the lowest level since the COVID lockdown month of January 2022.

Sales have still not recovered to levels before the pandemic. Compared with February 2020, volumes are down 1.6%.

It was economic rather than weather factors behind this as retailers told the ONS they faced tough trading conditions.

For the first time in three months, however, there was a boost in food store sales, and supermarkets in particular. It was also a good month for household goods retailers, most notably furniture shops, the ONS said.

Clothes became more expensive in November, data from earlier this week demonstrated, and it was these price rises that contributed to overall inflation rising again – topping 2.6%.

Retail sales figures are of significance as the data measures household consumption, the largest expenditure across the UK economy.

The data can also help track how consumers feel about their finances and the economy more broadly.

Industry body the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said higher energy bills and low consumer sentiment impacted spending.

The BRC’s director of insight Kris Hamer said it was a “shaky” start to the festive season.

Shoppers were holding off on purchases until full Black Friday offers kicked in, he added.

The period in question covers discounting coming up to Black Friday but not the actual Friday itself as the ONS examined the four weeks from 27 October to 23 November.

UK car manufacturing fell again in November, the ninth month of decline in a row, according to industry data.

A total of 64,216 cars were produced in UK factories last month, 27,711 fewer than in November last year – a 30% drop, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

The figures also mean it was the worst November for UK car production since 1980, when 62,728 vehicles were produced.

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It comes after the government launched a review into its electric car mandate – a system of financial penalties levied against car makers if zero-emission vehicles make up less than 22% of all sales to encourage electric vehicle (EV) production.

The mandate will rise to 80% of all sales by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

But car manufacturers have long expressed unhappiness with the target, saying the consumer demand is not there and EVs are costlier to produce.

Separate figures from the SMMT suggested a £5.8bn hit to the sector from the EV mandate.

Despite the criticism, EV sales goals were surpassed last month. One in every four new cars sold was an electric vehicle.

The impact of this reduced production could be visible in the last month from the announcement of 800 job cuts from Ford UK and Vauxhall‘s Luton plant closure.

The problems are not specific to the UK as European makers also face weaker EV demand than anticipated and competition from Chinese imports.

High borrowing costs and comparatively more expensive raw materials have worsened the problem.

Bosch – the world’s biggest car parts supplier – also reported the loss of 5,500 jobs last month, predominantly in Germany.

In October Volkswagen revealed plans to shut at least three factories in Germany and lay off tens of thousands of staff.