Government unveils Business Rates support

Pubs and music venues in England will be given a 15% discount on their business rates bills, the government has announced.

Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson said: “This government does want to go further to support pubs. Pubs are the cornerstone of so many communities, they are essential to the social and cultural life of so many places across the country.

“Today I can confirm that from April, every pub in England will get 15% off its new business rates bill on top of the support announced at Budget. Pubs’ bills will then be frozen in real terms for a further two years.

“This support is worth £1,650 for the average pub, just next year, and will mean that around three-quarters of pubs will see their bills either fall or stay the same next year. Then bills will be frozen in real terms for the next two years.”

The Chancellor also announced today £10 million of funding for the Hospitality Support Fund over three years – upped from £1.5 million for one year announced last April - to support pubs across the UK. The additional funding, the government said, aimed to help over 1,000 pubs provide extra services for local communities, including creating community cafes, village stores and play areas to help pubs bring locals and families together and boost their footfall. It will also support people who are furthest from the labour market to move into jobs in hospitality.    

The government is also launching a review into how hotels are valued. The review will be carried out by the government alongside businesses and their representatives as well as valuation experts, ensuring that any decisions that follow will be implemented for the 2029 revaluation.   

Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, said: “We welcome the recognition by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the scale of the challenges facing the hospitality sector. They have listened to us about the acute cost challenges facing businesses, all of which is impacting business viability, jobs and consumer prices.

“The rising cost of doing business and business rates increases is a hospitality-wide problem that needs a hospitality-wide solution. The government’s immediate review of hospitality valuations going forward is clear recognition of this.

“The devil will be in the detail, but we need to see pace and urgency to deliver the reform desperately needed to reduce hospitality’s tax burden, drive demand, and protect jobs and growth. We will work with the government over the next six months to hold their feet to the fire to deliver this.

“This emergency announcement to provide additional funding is helpful to address an acute challenge facing pubs.

“The reality remains that we still have restaurants and hotels facing severe challenges from successive Budgets. They need to see substantive solutions that genuinely reduce their costs.

“Without that clear action, they will face increasingly tough decisions on business viability, jobs and prices for consumers. Those are costs borne by us all, and I hope the Government delivers on its promise to support the whole hospitality sector.”

Christian Mouysset, founder and CEO of Tenzo: said: “The government's decision is a welcome sight, but pubs still face uncertainty and a test of resilience; as does the rest of the hospitality sector, which is yet to receive the same support. 

“The back-and-forth around the changes to business rates, on top of the previous National Insurance and minimum wage increases, is making planning especially difficult. Even where demand is holding up, the picture remains fragile. Data from Tenzo reveals that like-for-like sales in London and the South East rose just 4.2% year-on-year in December, with transactions up only 0.8%. This is simply not enough to offset rising costs across the board.

"Operators are going to need to adapt by implementing their own change to obtain a firm grasp on sales, inventory and staffing. With increasingly tight margins, unifying data into one single source of truth that guides day-to-day operations in real-time will be the differentiating factor between surviving and thriving.

“Hospitality businesses are resilient, but they can only withstand so much. Whilst government policy will have a significant impact on how the hospitality sector continues to evolve, the operators that achieve the most success this year will be those with clear, connected data insights that uncover new ways to protect margins and support confident decision making in an unpredictable climate.”