\u201cWhen the Labour government came in, the pub industry was already weak \u2014 and they piled on more costs,\u201d said Wetherspoons\u2019 boss Martin. <\/p>\n
Since Labour won power in 2024 Reeves has also hiked the minimum wage employers must pay their staff, increased employer national insurance contributions, and raised beer duties.<\/p>\n
While the industry cautiously welcomed Reeves\u2019 business rate U-turn last month, they say there\u2019s still more to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will make a significant difference, as three quarters of pubs are now going to see their bills staying the same or going down,\u201d Andy Tighe, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA)\u2019s strategy and policy director, said of the U-turn \u2014 but \u201cit doesn\u2019t solve everything,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor most operators, it\u2019s those big sorts of taxes around business rates, VAT, duty, employment-related taxes that make the real difference, ultimately, to how they think about the future,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A U.K. Treasury spokesperson said: \u201cWe are backing Britain\u2019s pubs \u2014 cutting April\u2019s business rates bills by 15 percent followed by a two year freeze, extending World Cup opening hours and increasing the Hospitality Support Fund to \u00a310 million to help venues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen the Labour government came in, the pub industry was already weak \u2014 and they piled on more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[785,748,1193,1194,1396,3374,393,7219,4884,806,1196,807,2452,51100,384,1144,46,619,2343,712,182,1200,16,15,9892,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-738295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-alcohol","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-british-politics","13":"tag-budget","14":"tag-dumping-duties","15":"tag-employment","16":"tag-england","17":"tag-equality","18":"tag-great-britain","19":"tag-industry","20":"tag-insurance","21":"tag-keir-starmer","22":"tag-media","23":"tag-mel-stride","24":"tag-nigel-farage","25":"tag-northern-ireland","26":"tag-policy","27":"tag-rachel-reeves","28":"tag-research","29":"tag-scotland","30":"tag-social-media","31":"tag-tax","32":"tag-uk","33":"tag-united-kingdom","34":"tag-vat","35":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116003635418672254","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}