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The UK's biggest retailers are being asked to intervene in the Scottish referendum debate, spelling out how a yes vote next week could force up the costs of doing business in an independent Scotland and result in higher prices in the shops.
With the explicit support of No 10, the initiative – which will come in the form of a letter to be released at the weekend – was being led by Sir Ian Cheshire, the chief executive of Kingfisher, the business behind B&Q, the DIY chain. Other retailers understood to have agreed to back the initiative so far include Marc Bolland, the chief executive of Marks & Spencer, and Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Group. Andy Clarke, the chief executive of Asda, and John Timpson, boss of the Timpson shoe repair business, also support it.
On Thursday night Cheshire confirmed his involvement: "Business leaders need to speak out and get the facts in front of Scottish voters who need to make a decision. It's not scaremongering, which seems to be a favourite phrase of Alex Salmond. There are costs and consequences of separation and I think the current system works better. Independence is possible but people have to decide if it is better. There needs to be measured debate."
So far, it is understood that Morrisons has refused to add its name and that several other leading retailers are holding back, fearing it would alienate vast numbers of Scottish shoppers.
News of the coordinated move will fuel Salmond's concerns that a dirty tricks campaign against him is being co-ordinated in Downing Street.
On Thursday the first minister launched a stinging attack on the Treasury over an alleged leak about how Royal Bank of Scotland would relocate its head office to London if next week's referendum backed a breakaway from the union.
A furious Salmond also demanded co-operation from the BBC – with which the Scottish National party has had a fractious relationship during the independence campaign – over its reporting on Wednesday night that the 81% taxpayer-owned bank could relocate if there were a yes vote. It was a matter of "enormous gravity" for an unnamed Treasury official to have tipped off the BBC on Wednesday night, he said, demanding a formal leak inquiry by Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the UK civil service. Salmond insisted the BBC had a duty to cooperate, implying it was duty-bound to reveal its source.
Salmond accused the Treasury of being a major force in the no campaign: "They've now been caught red-handed as being part of a campaign of scaremongering." There were Treasury fingerprints all over a campaign of "intimidation and bullying," he said.
RBS confirmed the details of its contingency plans in a 7am stock exchange announcement which came after the other bailed-out bank with major Scottish operations, Lloyds Banking Group, had also set out its plans to potentially move its Edinburgh-based headquarters and prompted TSB, Tesco Bank and the Australian-owned Clydesdale bank to reveal similar contingency arrangements.
Amid union fears of sweeping job cuts across the financial services industry in Scotland, the banks played down the toll on employment in their combined Scottish workforces of 35,000, while the yes campaign insisted any shift of head offices amounted to little more than moving brass plates. However, Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Treasury minister, backing Better Together, said it was of the "utmost seriousness for Scotland". "In the short term, jobs and tax revenues would be lost. But in the longer term, the centre of gravity and decision-making of Scotland's financial sector would have shifted to a foreign country. This would have the much more profound consequence of the steady erosion of the jobs and prosperity that this sector has brought to Scotland for two centuries," Alexander said.
Even before the new initiative to encourage top retailers to speak out in a coordinated way, there had been warnings from retail bosses that prices could rise if Scotland became independent. But Salmond kept the focus on the way RBS's plans had emerged on Wednesday night. A BBC spokeswoman said: "We note that Alex Salmond has called for an inquiry by the cabinet secretary and we will await a decision on that request. The story in question was accurate and BBC News exercised normal editorial judgments."
The Treasury denied it activated the story about RBS or Lloyds – whose plans were first reported by the Sun – although the Treasury did issue a press release at 10.15pm for immediate release entitled "Government response to Lloyds Banking Group statement on Scottish referendum".
Any leak was a breach of Treasury and civil service rules, Salmond said. "It is a basic rule that it can't be released prior to the announcement at 7am this morning. This is a matter of enormous gravity."
Controversy about whether the RBS announcement was price-sensitive – which would require a formal Stock Exchange statement – was exacerbated by the decision by Lloyds not to make such a formal announcement following advice from its City brokers that the market did not have to be informed of contingency planning.
Shares in RBS and Lloyds both rose 1% in a falling market although Ian Gordon, an analyst at Investec, said: "I'm not aware of anything contained in the announcements that we wouldn't have taken as a given [although] may be we hadn't had it confirmed as a given".
Salmond played down the significance of the RBS announcement on the independence campaign, reading from a memo from Ross McEwan, the boss of RBS, pledging no impact on jobs. McEwan wrote to staff – some 11,500 of whom are based in Scotland – to tell them: "Our current business in Scotland, including the personal and business bank, IT and operations, human resources and many other functions, are here because of the skills and knowledge of our people, and the sound business environment. So far, I see no reason why this would change should we implement our contingency plans".
Lloyds Banking Group, the biggest private sector employer in Scotland with a 16,000 workforce, has 75 individuals based in its Edinburgh-based HQ with 3,000 in Bank of Scotland branches, 4,000 for Scottish Widows and a variety of other roles across the country. Tesco Bank, owned by the supermarket chain Tesco, employs 3,000 in Scotland, Clydesdale an estimated 3,500 and TSB around 2,000.
Despite the reassurance about jobs, a union source said: "There are concerns that there could be job cuts whatever the outcome."
While the banks warned that they needed to move their headquarters to ensure they remained protected by the Bank of England, Martin Gilbert, the boss of Aberdeen Asset Management, said an independent Scotland would be a big success.
Even so retail bosses also spoke of their concerns about the impact of independence.
Andy Clarke, chief executive of Asda, the UK's second largest supermarket, said: "If we were no longer to operate in one state with one market and, broadly, one set of rules, our business model would inevitably become more complex. We would have to reflect our cost to operate here."
Mayfield, chairman of John Lewis, said: "The costs of doing business for most retailers are somewhat higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK but most retailers have one price across the UK. In the event of a yes vote that might change."
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