Pubs and live music venues to get support after business rates backlash
The Treasury has announced a support package worth more than £80m a year for pubs and live music venues in England, in a climbdown that follows a fierce backlash against plans to overhaul business rates.Trade bodies had warned that Rachel Reeves’s changes to business rates, announced at the chancellor’s November budget, would trigger widespread closures and job losses in the hospitality sector, particularly in pubs.On Tuesday, the government announced financial support to mitigate the effect of the rates shake-up, after officials admitted they had not foreseen its total financial impact.The package is expected to be worth more than £80m a year, over three years, for pubs and gig venues.It will only apply to England but the government said extra funding would be freed up for Scotland and Wales to follow suit.
While some figures in the pub industry gave the U-turn a cautious welcome, several trade bodies warned the measures did not go far enough and criticised the decision to exclude other under-pressure businesses such as hotels and retailers.A group of publicans who have barred Labour MPs including Reeves from their premises said relief on rates was not enough to convince them to serve the chancellor a pint.Dan Tomlinson, the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said pubs in England would save an average of £1,650 each thanks to a 15% discount on their new business rates bill from 1 April, with bills then frozen in real terms for a further two years.Three-quarters of pubs will see their rates bill fall or stay the same next year, he said, while rates across the sector as a whole would be lower in 2028-29 than they are now.Relief will only apply to pubs where customers can buy drinks without eating, and will not apply to hotels, whose rates will be reviewed separately.
Local authorities will adjudicate on borderline cases, such as pubs that could be construed as hotels or restaurants.During the three-year period covered by the relief, the government will review the methodology used to calculate how much pubs should pay in rates, amid claims by the industry that it is unfairly penalised.The government has already moved to overhaul pub licensing rules and said on Tuesday that this would include allowing extended hours during the latter stages of this year’s men’s football World Cup and making it easier to expand their premises.However, the government will not reduce the rate of VAT on beers, spirits and wine, one of the sector’s biggest bugbears.The British Beer and Pub Association’s chief executive, Emma McClarkin, said the 15% rate relief would “provide certainty for tens of thousands of pubs […] and there will be a sigh of relief from landlords across the country”.
She called for further work on a long-term plan for permanent reform of business rates and reduced regulation.Several trade bodies also criticised the government for not going further, given the cost pressures caused by factors including rising wages, energy bills and VAT.The ale enthusiasts’ group Camra said it was “shortsighted” to think that a temporary measure would save pubs facing the threat of closure.Andy Lennox, who leads a group of landlords who have banned MPs from drinking in their pubs, said: “Rates reform was only one part of our demands and it was for the whole sector – not just pubs – so we stand in solidarity with wider hospitality who have been excluded and thus will not be lifting the #NoLabourMP ban.”The hospitality sector has come under intense financial pressure in recent years, with significant cost increases from higher employer national insurance contributions, rises in the minimum wage, energy costs, and inflation.
Higher bills meant one pub a day closed for good in England and Wales last year, according to analysis of government statistics by the tax specialist company Ryan.It found the overall number of pubs, including those vacant and being offered to let, had fallen to 38,623 in 2025, down from 39,989 a year earlier.In the budget Reeves announced a £4.3bn support package that included giving relief to businesses, intended to offset the end of a Covid support scheme that had reduced bills by 40%.However, this did not offset a significant increase in property tax bills caused by the first revaluations of properties since the pandemic from April.
The transition in relief caps was designed to be implemented over several years, to stagger the rise in bills, but the industry had complained that the increase in the third year was unaffordable.Pubs across the UK were facing an average 76% increase in their business rates bills over the next three years before Tuesday’s announcement.Hotels are braced for an average 115% rise, according to UKHospitality.However, the boss of Waterstones, James Daunt, this week defended the government’s approach to the high street, arguing that changes to business rates were “sensible” and had benefited shops in struggling areas.
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Reform UK has announced that Matt Goodwin, the campaigner and former academic, as its candidate in Gorton and Denton.In a news release, Reform said:Matt is a leading writer, broadcaster and academic. He was made by Manchester - which he calls ‘the greatest city in the world’. He lived in the city for many years and considers it home.Matt’s family is from Manchester
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The argument that it would be too costly to run a mayoral election in Manchester and run the risk of its being won by Reform UK is perfectly valid (‘Huge mistake’: Labour in turmoil as Burnham blocked from byelection race, 25 January). The problem is that that is not how the decision of the Labour party’s national executive committee will be read. And this is now a pattern.Kicking off with the foolhardy acceptance of luxury goodies from Lord Alli, fast followed by the removal of pensioners’ winter fuel payments and going on to a failure to read the runes over the grooming gangs and many other depressing own goals, this government has demonstrated a quite astonishing lack of self-awareness.Keir Starmer is now beginning to resemble, of all unlikely people, Boris Johnson in his seeming inability to grasp how badly some of his decisions – and subsequent reversals – reflect on him
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Deacon Blue ‘appalled’ by Reform UK’s Scottish leader quoting their song lyrics
One of Scotland’s most celebrated rock bands, Deacon Blue, say they are “appalled” that one of their greatest hits is being used by Reform UK’s new Scottish leader to bolster his party’s “poisonous rhetoric”.Malcolm Offord quoted at length on Monday from the group’s song Dignity at his first major speech since he was announced as Reform UK’s first Scottish leader, three months before a crucial Holyrood election in which the party is expected to win up to 18 seats.Responding overnight from Perth, Australia, where the band are embarking on a two-week tour with songs from their new album, The Great Western Road, Deacon Blue told the Guardian: “Once a song is released into the world it can be sung, listened to and loved or hated by anyone; that is just the nature of releasing a song.“However, it appals us to see the lyrics of any of our songs being used to bolster a campaign and ideology which is completely at odds with what the song, and we as a band, believe”.Describing it as “one of my favourite songs”, the multimillionaire financier said the lyrics encapsulated his own journey from growing up in modest circumstances on the Clyde and admiring the yachts he “couldn’t afford to sail”, to making his money in the City of London and now being able to afford several yachts of his own
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