Retail sales suffered their worst December slump on record last month as the Omicron variant was blamed for keeping shoppers away.

The 3.7% month-on-month decline in sales volumes reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) follows a strong November, when some consumers chose to make Christmas purchases early.

It was significantly worse than the 0.6% drop that had been pencilled in by forecasters and was the biggest December decline on records going back to 1996.

The data highlighted the pressure on businesses created by the variant – and restrictions designed to tackle its spread – over the key festive season.

Sales were also 0.9% down compared with the previous COVID-hit festive season a year earlier.

A fall in demand for petrol and diesel, due to more people working from home under Plan B rules, contributed to the slump.

The December 2021 figure was the worst month-on-month decline since last January when Britain was coming under a tough new lockdown.

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Heather Bovill, ONS deputy director for surveys and economic indicators, said: “After strong pre-Christmas trading in November, retail sales fell across the board in December, with feedback from retailers suggesting Omicron impacted on footfall.”

The figures showed that non-food store sales – including department stores and clothing retailers – suffered a 7.1% fall while food store volumes were off by 1%.

Online sales were slightly higher as a proportion of the total, at 26.6%, than they were in November, at 26.3%, according to the ONS.

For 2021 as a whole, retail sales were up by 5.1% – a level of growth that has not been higher since 2002.

However that follows a 1.8% decline in 2020 when the pandemic took hold. Compared with 2019, annual retail sales last year were up by a more modest 3.2%.

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