London’s Heathrow Airport is pushing the Chancellor to introduce ‘internationally competitive tax-free shopping’ in next month’s Budget.

It says that while exports are thriving, Britain’s tourist tax is turning away shoppers from overseas who no longer see the UK as competitive.

The airport has joined forced with the British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses to make the case for a competitive tax-free shopping incentive to be included in the Budget on 6 March.

Heathrow’s call comes after it saw a near 10% rise in passenger numbers last month compared with January 2023 to almost six million people.

London Stansted Airport saw a rise of 6.9% in passenger numbers to 1.95m, 200,000 more than its last highest January in 2019.

The Essex airport will have several new routes this year, including a Royal Jordanian service to Amman next month, British Airways flights to Nice, Florence and Ibiza, plus new services from Ryanair, Jet2.com and Sun Express.