Author Jacqueline Wilson backs bookshops in their plea to be spared crippling tax bills

Acclaimed children’s author Jacqueline Wilson is the latest big name to back bookshops in their plea to be spared crippling tax bills. 

The best-selling writer of The Story of Tracy Beaker has urged Andy Burnham to offer bookshops support on business rates in the way he has for pubs and bars.

Joanne Harris, the author of 1999 novel Chocolat, fantasy writer Sir Philip Pullman and children’s laureate Patrice Lawrence are also backing a campaign by more than 200 independent bookshops against soaring bills that could push many of them out of business – and exacerbate a reading crisis among youngsters.

Burnham, the first Prime Minister with an English literature degree, handed pubs and live-music venues a 20 per cent discount on their business rates.

He has insisted he will go ‘further’ on business rates, boosting hopes that more action will be taken ahead of the Budget on October 28.

But many businesses have been left bruised after they were promised help ahead of last year’s Budget, only to then be hit with higher rates.

Acclaimed children’s author Jacqueline Wilson is the latest big name to back bookshops in their plea to be spared crippling tax bills

About 400 independent bookshops in England and Wales face an average rise in their rates bills of £4,563 a year by 2030.

Bookshops have also argued that, unlike other retailers, they tend to stick to the recommended prices printed on the back of titles – so cannot simply increase them to offset higher costs.

Wilson said that many bookshops were ‘already struggling to pay their bills’ and gave her full support to business rates reform.

Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association, which has organised the campaign from authors and shops, said bookshops ‘create value beyond the transactional’ by bringing communities together and ‘adding vibrancy to our high streets’.

Bookshops were also crucial in tackling a crisis in which reading for pleasure among eight to 18-year-olds is at its lowest level since records began, the authors added.