The specialist retailer, which reported a rise in full-year pre-tax profit and a record £1bn in sales, said in its results that it had chosen not the use the job retention scheme, which offers to pay 80% of furloughed colleagues’ salaries in a bid to minimise redundancies.

Pritchard said retailers had to make a “moral judgement” about whether they needed to access the scheme in order for their business to survive the coronavirus pandemic.