After two or more years of constant lobbying and getting nowhere, telling Labour MPs “you’re barred” seems to have been the key to finally getting the Government to sit up and notice.
I’m being a little facetious and apologies to the trade associations that have been banging their heads against a brick wall for the past two years. But there’s no denying that the move by some operators to bar MPs, and the subsequent coverage and reaction by back bench MPs has certainly upped the pressure on the Government and we’re now looking at a potential U turn on business rates.
Or maybe a J turn… We’ll see.
After several weeks of headlines suggesting the Government was going to war with the pub sector, with some comparing the situation to the miners strikes of the early 80s, it would appear the Government has retreated.
Sticking plaster
Announcements yesterday said the Treasury were now going to look at the situation with the BBC saying the Government was going to “water down” the rates increases for pubs.
This is definitely a positive bit of news, but we need to be cautious and urge the Government not to just attempt to do the bare minimum, putting a sticking plaster over the problem.
Reading between the lines of what little has been said, it’s likely the sector is still going to be facing rises, but there will be some mitigation on that. I suspect the Government are going to up the discount on the multiplier, but they also need to take a look at the revaluation increases as well.
To simply focus on turnover, without factoring the real world increases in costs, from utilities to Government taxation, means the increases in rates are not just fundamentally unfair, punishing operators for doing everything they can to claw back those increased costs, they’re a potential business killer for many.
We need to see those revaluations put on hold, while root and branch reform on how those figures are calculated is carried out. Without this, it doesn’t matter how many discounts Gov apply, the root problem remains.
Delivering promises
This is what industry has been calling for, and this is what Labour promised in its pre-election manifesto. The industry now calls on them to actually deliver what they promised, rather than fiddling around the edges and then trying to spin something that everyone else recognises as a disaster.
And while I’m delighted that pubs are being recognised as the cultural important institutions they are, I’d urge Government to look at all hospitality in that review and reform - we live in an eco-system where all businesses feed into, and upon each other.
For pubs to thrive, we need to have thriving and successful restaurants, cafes and hotels as well - we don’t exist in a bubble.
So, please, I urge the Government to properly think this through - we don’t need a knee-jerk response to try and make the nasty headlines go away, we need sensible, proper reform that can set the industry up to deliver the economic growth this country desperately needs.
Right, now who do we see about VAT…?
