The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said that today’s retail figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirm the BRC’s findings, published last week, “that strong retail sales in June and July were not sustained”.

BRC director general Stephen Robertson said: “The official data confirms our own findings…

“Our Retail Sales Monitor (RSM) showed food sales growth was marginally stronger than in July, while clothing and footwear were well down on a year ago - the same picture painted by the ONS.

“With unemployment rates at a 14-year high and predicted to increase into next year, most people are still very cautious about spending on expensive items - unless there are sufficient discounts.

“As we head to the crucial final quarter we mustn’t get carried away if, in the next few months, sales growth data appear particularly strong. The comparison will be with very weak figures last year, when total sales growth fell below zero from October onwards and Christmas was the worst since 1995.”

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