Reform vows to ‘finish the rot’ of hundreds of pub closures with £3billion of hospitality tax cuts funded by reinstating two-child profit cap
Nigel Farage said pubs ‘matter’ today as he unveiled Reform UK’s plan to save them with £3billion of tax cuts funded by cutting child benefits.
Mr Farage unveil a five-point plan to save Britain’s boozers with a blast at Rachel Reeves amid warnings that thousands are having to close.
The plan would see Reform will reduce VAT to 10 per cent for the hospitality sector if they win the next election.
The plan will be paid for by reinstating the two-child benefit limit for everyone except for ‘British working families’ – defined as some 3,700 households with two British parents working full time.
Reform also said it would also scrap the employer national insurance increase for hospitality businesses which was announced by Rachel Reeves in her first budget.
It also vowed to cut beer duty by 10 per cent and eventually abolish business rates for all pubs while changing regulations to support landlords.
Mr Farage claimed the plan could take a pound off the cost of a pint, as he held a press conference in a pub.
‘What is happening to our pubs, what is happening to our hospitality sector, is little short of a disaster,’ he said.
‘They’re on the edge of falling off a cliff. It’s serious. It’s very, very serious.’
Mr Farage unveil a five-point plan to save Britain’s boozers with a blast at Rachel Reeves amid warnings that thousands are having to close.
According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), there were 69,000 pubs in 1980 which fell to 46,350 in 2021.
Last week, the Chancellor announced a rescue package for landlords worth around £100million next year and said opening hours would be extended.
Last week, the Chancellor announced a rescue package for landlords worth around £100million next year and said opening hours would be extended.
It means that pubs in England will get 15 per cent off their business rates next year with that amount frozen for two years after that.
It wasn’t enough, however, to lift a pub ban on Labour MPs which began after Ms Reeves announced that Covid-era support was coming to an end.
According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), there were 69,000 pubs in 1980 which fell to 46,350 in 2021.
A BPPA spokeswoman said: ‘Significantly reducing the overall tax burden and cost of doing business, are key to ensuring pubs remain at the heart of communities, boost the economy, and keep people in jobs. It is important that all pub-operating models are supported to enable this.
‘We’ll continue to work with all parties to ensure that the industry has a voice and plans are evidence-led, proportionate, and have the sector’s best interests at the heart of them.’
The Campaign For Real Ale said that a thousand pubs shut in 2025, the equivalent of five a day, although some are seeking new owners.
Trade bodies also say business rates, duty increases, wage and tax rises, and new waste regulations put up costs.
UKHospitality, which represents, pubs, restaurants and hotels, estimated that the added £1billion in extra national insurance costs last year following the budget.
It said April’s increase in the minimum wage added £1.9billion to staff costs and changes to business rates have added another £500million, taking the overall extra bill last year to £3.4billion.
Regulations, such as the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging — effectively a tax on glass — are estimated to cost large pubs about £2,000 a year, according to the BPPA.
The announcement came as Cabinet minister Pat McFadden told MPs removing the two-child benefit cap is about ‘ensuring that children have the chance of a better life’.
At the start of a debate on the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill he said removing the limit would mean ‘450,000 fewer children in poverty in the last year of this Parliament’.
The Work and Pensions Secretary told MPs: ‘People should have the chance to make the best life they possibly can – poverty is a barrier to that ambition and it makes it much harder for people to achieve their full potential.’
Referring to the Conservative decision to bring in the cap, which prevented most parents from claiming Universal Credit for third and subsequent children, Mr McFadden said: ‘This was always first and foremost a political exercise, an attempt to set a trap for opponents with children used as the pawns in the exercise.
‘This was all about the politics of dividing lines – dividing lines between so-called shirkers and strivers, between the old distinction of the deserving and the undeserving poor.’
