The Chancellor’s so-called U-turn yesterday, offering pubs a 15 per cent discount on business rates from April 2026, is not help, it is not relief, it is a smirk in the face of publicans and a slap in the face to the wider hospitality industry.
Yes, I am a publican. Yes, I will take the discount; you would be mad not to. British Pubs matter. They are part of our culture, history and community life. But let’s be absolutely clear, this announcement is not about saving pubs, and it certainly is not about saving hospitality. Hospitality is dying on its feet, and this government is watching it happen while pretending to care.
The first insult is that this so-called help applies only to pubs. Hospitality is far bigger than pubs alone. Hotels, restaurants, cafes and small independents are being hammered from every direction.
Pubs, on average, are seeing business rates rise by around 76 per cent. Hotels are being hit even harder, with average rises of around 115 per cent. Cafes and restaurants are facing similarly brutal increases.
Meanwhile, warehouses, the kind used by Amazon and other online giants, are seeing rises of around 17 per cent. Supermarkets, some of the most profitable businesses in the country, are seeing rises of just four per cent.
Tell me how that is fair, please tell me how that makes sense and let me know how that supports British jobs or British communities.
This 15 per cent discount is not a solution. It is a PR exercise designed to send out a signal that Labour is “helping pubs”. They are not. My own business rates are going up by around 50 per cent.
Please explain to me, slowly, how knocking 15 per cent off that makes any meaningful difference. It doesn’t. It barely scratches the surface.
And this is before we even get to the rest of the damage. The rise in employer national insurance contributions, the forced rises in the minimum wage, and the removal of business rates relief.
This latest U-turn is a fig leaf for a bigger body blow. Let me explain the economics of my pub - Adam Brooks | Getty Images
Taken together, those decisions from just her first two budgets have added between £30,000 and £40,000 a year in extra costs to my small business alone.
That is real money. Money that has to come from somewhere, usually by cutting staff hours, raising prices, delaying investment, or shutting the doors altogether.
I can already see what is coming. Thousands of pubs will close this year. Thousands of restaurants, cafes and hotels will follow. Not because people do not want them, but because they have become financially unsustainable under a Government that does not understand how hospitality works, or worse, does not care.
Let’s talk about a pint of beer. On average, a publican earns about 15 pence on a pint. That is it. On a £5.50 pint, the Government takes around £2 in tax once you factor in VAT, excise duty, business rates and all the hidden stealth taxes piled on top. Fifteen pence for the person running the business. Two pounds for the state. And they wonder why pubs are closing.
Successive governments have allowed pubs to disappear from our high streets and villages. Some have even encouraged it through neglect and bad policy.
Now Labour are here to finish the job. Rachel Reeves is either the most clueless Chancellor this country has ever seen, or she knows exactly what she is doing. I will let you decide, but it is one or the other. She is either dangerously incompetent or deliberately destructive. Neither is acceptable.
Since Labour came to power, hundreds of thousands of hospitality jobs have already been lost. Businesses are closing, and pubs are shutting at a record rate. Yet we are told everything is fine and that a 15 per cent discount is some kind of victory.
How can anyone defend this? How can anyone look hospitality workers in the eye and pretend this is support?
Labour MPs remain barred from my pub. That notice is still in the window, and it is not coming down. Nearly 2,000 publicans and hospitality owners are part of this movement already, and now I see restaurants, cafes and hotels doing the same.
This is not stubbornness. It is simply survival.