The talk within the industry is that this is comparable to coal mine crisis, which saw Thatcher’s Government go to war with the coal miners unions.
This is not hyperbole. The sad news is that some MPs have been telling operators that the pub sector is a “dinosaur industry, and needs to go the way of the coal mines”.
Meanwhile, senior Government figures are standing there and repeating the same dishonest rubbish about how “we support pubs” while simultaneously burying them under an avalanche of tax increases. This can no longer be allowed to wash.
Rattled
You can see the spin from space - the headlines in the nationals, the discussions on the television and radio, along with the campaign to bar Labour MPs, has got the Government rattled and its pushing out Starmer to try and dampen down the noise - wheel out the Prime Minister to add a further level of spin and dishonesty to knock the story off the news agenda.
But let’s break it down:
- Transitional relief is not support - it’s a legal requirement on Government to try and lessen the impact of increases on rates - they have to do it, it’s not something their kindly offering out of the goodness of their hearts, and it’s still an increase too far when pubs were promised reform and lower taxation on business rates.
- 5p off the multiplier is replacing one reasonable discount (40% rates relief) with a, pardon my French, piss poor one. And it’s paltry when you consider they could have easily offered a 20p discount on the multiplier.
- Licensing legislation reform: This is shifting deckchairs on the Titanic. No pub needs to be able to stay open till 2am when most customers are home and in bed by 9pm. And the crushing costs of staying open, thanks to the previous budget, make longer hours impossible.
- Continuing to trot out the outrageous lie that the support they’ve put in place means pubs are only seeing a 4% rise in costs is outrageous. At best, with transitional relief, pubs are facing rates increases of 15 to 30% in the first year, with that rising over the following two. To continue to repeat 4% with no basis in reality is shocking.
The Government either needs to step up and provide a fairer and more balanced taxation environment that allows pubs to thrive and continue to contribute to the economy and society, (we’re not asking for handouts, we’re asking for fairness) or it needs to start being honest that it’s going to war with the pub sector and has the view that it has no place in the Labour vision of society in the future.
Who wins?
And if that’s the case, who wins?
Not the exchequer, which coins it in from the pub sector on a number of fronts.
Not employees - we’ll see hundreds of thousands of direct jobs lost from a sector that is a major employer, not to mention the indirect losses from the various industries that supply and work alongside the hospitality sector.
Not communities, which will see third spaces that host events and provide support for activities like grassroots sports, disappear from villages and high streets across the country.
Not charities who see pubs organise, facilitate and raise thousands of pounds a year in their support.
Not society, which is already fragmented, factional and in desperate need of real world interaction at a time when social media moguls whip up and foment unrest
And not the pub operators who face not just the loss of income and employment, but in many cases their homes and their families place in a community.
There are no winners.
These aren’t businesses that aren’t viable. These are businesses that are being taxed out of existence by a Government that doesn’t understand, doesn’t care, and doesn’t have the decency to be honest about it either.