Last week, Labour MP for Chipping Barnet and Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Dan Tomlinson, claimed industry leaders had not provided “strong and significant” representations on how hospitality businesses are valued by the VOA before the 2025 Autumn Budget.
Speaking at a Treasury Committee hearing on Wednesday 11 February, Tomlinson added sector trade bodies and pub operators “underestimated” the impact of the changes to business rates, stating support introduced in the pandemic was always going to come to an end.
He added this fuelled the backlash faced by the Government after the November Budget.
The Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) CEO Andy Slee said he was disappointed with Tomlinson’s comments.
“Throughout the revaluation process, trade bodies, including SIBA, engaged constructively with the VOA and consistently raised concerns regarding methodology, transparency, and the cumulative impact on pubs and independent brewers”, he told The Morning Advertiser (The MA).
“These representations were made in good faith and with the clear objective of ensuring a fair and proportionate outcome for the sector, and it is frustrating these concerns were not passed on to the minister by the VOA.
Structural change
“It is also important to recognise the revaluation period coincided with the Government’s stated intention to bring forward more fundamental reform of the business rates system, with further detail anticipated at the Autumn Budget.
“Many businesses were therefore operating in an environment of ongoing policy uncertainty while continuing to press for structural change.”
Meanwhile, British Institute of Innkeeping CEO Steve Alton told The MA the trade body, and its members, had consistently and directly called for fundamental reform of the business rates system.
He continued: “Our involvement with the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) was to provide an independent pub voice to deliver the best result possible for our members within the existing flawed system.
“This overly complex system has needed rebalancing for many years, and we have consistently highlighted this to those in power at Westminster."
BII chief executive Steve Alton
“The insight and data we shared on the financial realities for our members with the VOA, was not been reflected within their approach, as it had been in the 2023 valuations, and when we saw the VOA’s new rateable values (RVs) published at the Budget at the end of November 2025, we withdrew our support.
“In previous business rates consultations, we stated our members felt it was unfair pubs are taxed on their turnover figures, rather than the value of their property. In addition, they are penalised for success and for the investments they make to their properties.
“We also raised serious concerns the higher-than- average expenses, including escalating levels of taxation, within pub businesses are not adequately reflected against the high turnover figures being used.”
“Even since this point, the measures delivered in the Budget in 2024 have both further increased employment costs and reduced the business rates relief from 75% down to 40%, more than doubling pubs’ rates bills resulting in only one in three pubs now generating a profit.
“We also pressed for the need for the VOA to be more transparent about the information they rely on for revaluations, giving pubs better information with which to challenge incorrect RVs”, Alton continued.
Complex system
The chief executive also pointed out he personally gave evidence to the Business Rates Bill Committee in December 2024.
He continued: “This overly complex system has needed rebalancing for many years, and we have consistently highlighted this to those in power at Westminster.
“Reform needs to rebalance the digital and physical economy, recognise the reality of the profit and loss of today’s pub businesses and deliver an actual reduction in the business rates bills as part of the vital need to reduce the unfair cumulative tax burden our members face.
“We have welcomed steps taken by Treasury to freeze current business rates bills for the next three years for the majority of pubs and the commitment to review the fundamental basis of valuation for pubs. We look forward to the Treasury working closely with the sector and directly with independent pub operators to deliver a fair permanent system.”
A spokesperson for the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) also highlighted the fact that the VOA’s methodology has been in question for some time.
They told The MA: “We, along with other bodies, worked with the Valuation Office Agency on behalf of the sector to provide advice on the development of their pub valuation guidance, as our members would expect.
“However, the methodology has been in question for some time and in light of the recent revaluations and the unprecedented increases many pubs have seen, we withdrew our support for the latest guide.”
