The very day before Rachel Reeves delivered her second catastrophic Budget, I was invited to Number 11 Downing Street to relay my fears for the hospitality industry in my capacity as a publican and campaigner.
Five minutes was all I got with the Chancellor. Hardly enough time to convey the scale of the problem facing Britain’s thousands of pub landlords and restaurateurs. But I genuinely felt, as Reeves nodded along sympathetically to my concerns, that this Labour government was on the side of British hospitality.
How wrong I was.
Of course, I should have guessed that by the time I met with the Chancellor the ink was already dry on her reckless tax-and-spend Budget. But I could never have anticipated the scale of the destruction Reeves would announce from the Despatch Box the following day on November 26.
The truth is that this Labour government has hammered our industry with impossible tax rises that seem designed to run us out of business.
It is now estimated that just one in 10 British pubs will be able to operate at a profit. No wonder two hospitality businesses close in this country every single day.
And that is why I have taken the decision to ban all Labour MPs from my premises. If they don’t care about my business, then they aren’t welcome to enjoy my hospitality. Since I announced my new policy a few days ago, a growing number of landlords and restaurateurs have followed suit.
I’ve been in the industry for 25 years and have run The Larder House bar and restaurant in Southbourne, Dorset, for 15 years, alongside a small cheesemongers and delicatessen.
And while it’s never been easy, we’ve always just about got by. That is, until now. In delivering her Budget, Rachel Reeves told the nation there would be lower business rates for hospitality venues and the lowest tax burden on pubs since 1991.
I should have guessed that by the time I met with the Chancellor the ink was already dry on her reckless tax-and-spend Budget, says James Fowler
The Government later claimed the average independent pub would see savings of £4,800 a year.
Quite frankly, these numbers appear to have been plucked out of thin air.
For a start, the ‘rateable value’ of my restaurant has recently gone up from around £18,000 to over £22,000. This is the metric – set by an independent body – by which business rates are determined on a case-by-case basis. The higher your rateable value, the higher your tax bill.
It’s unclear how much I’ll be paying next year in business rates, however, according to the Taxpayers Alliance, the average business rates bill for pubs is set to rise from £3,938 to £9,451.
This is largely due to the tapering of Covid-era business rate relief from April next year which has already fallen from 75 per cent to just 40 per cent.
But while the pandemic may be over, its fiscal legacy – as Labour keeps telling us – continues. I’m still trading at 40 per cent below my pre-Covid turnover. The industry hasn’t had a chance to rally – largely due to reduced spending power among consumers – so removing the relief is like withdrawing medication before the patient has recovered.
Then there’s VAT, which at 20 per cent is a massive burden on hospitality venues. I’ve long campaigned for rates to be brought down to 13 per cent, still higher than in neighbouring Ireland where the rate for hospitality is nine per cent.
And this isn’t to even mention the myriad of other smaller taxes recently introduced including an absurd new levy on the recycling of glass waste. What the Government seems to have forgotten is that the hospitality industry is the third largest employer in the country. Hammering us means more people out of work – it’s as simple as that.
James Fowler owns The Larder House in Southbourne – and has banned all Labour MPs from the pub in retaliation for tax rises on the hospitality industry
Thankfully, since starting our ‘No Labour MPs’ initiative the public has shown overwhelming support – with bookings at The Larder House up in the short term, writes James Fowler
The data already bears this out. From 2022 to 2024, the hospitality industry shrunk from 3.5 million employees to just 2.8 million with trade body UKHospitality now expecting a further 100,000 jobs to be extinguished as a direct result of Reeves’s recent Budget.
It’s something I’ve experienced first-hand having had to reduce my workforce from 25 staffers pre-Covid to around half that number today. And with over a million people aged between 16 and 24 neither in work nor education, it is crazy to be making it harder for hospitality venues to hire.
We all know that working behind the bar in a pub or as a waiter in a restaurant is a brilliant way in to work for so many young people, giving them both an income and purpose while also building resilience and discipline.
One thing is for sure, the welfare bill for unemployment is far greater than the taxes being raised on floundering hospitality businesses.
I have no shortage of keen young people coming into my restaurant with freshly printed CVs asking for work. I wish I could help them but, like so many others, there’s nothing I can do.
The cost of employment is sky-high with the increase in employers’ National Insurance announced in April and of course the ever-increasing minimum wage which – while something I support in theory – is another financial burden. So instead, I’m working 12-hour days, six days a week on the floor while also managing the business side of things simply because I can’t afford to hire more staff.
One of the joys of my job used to be giving opportunities to young, aspiring chefs and front-of-house staff who we could train up. Many of them went on to have highly successful careers. That pipeline doesn’t exist now and the industry will feel the effects in the coming years.
Thankfully, since starting our ‘No Labour MPs’ initiative the public has shown overwhelming support – with bookings at The Larder House up in the short term.
But this won’t last because ordinary British people can’t afford to eat out twice a week like they do in other European countries.
No landlord wants to raise their prices but we’ve been left with no choice.
According to the British Institute Of Innkeeping, 90 per cent of pubs have increased drinks prices and 80 per cent have cut staff hours as a direct result of Labour tax rises.
And so we’re caught in a death spiral of rising prices and reduced footfall. To me, it seems as if there’s simply no way out. The most expensive pint in my bar is £6.80, and that’s a delightful local lager. But soon I’ll be forced to go above £7 and, I’m afraid – especially for premises that don’t sell food – the £10 pint is just around the corner.
To date, more than 150 pubs and restaurants have joined me in banning Labour MPs from their businesses. My phone has been ringing off the hook with further landlords and restaurateurs asking how to get involved.
Rachel Reeves lied to my face – and to countless other small-business owners up and down the country.
Growth in our industry is non-existent and the result will be more shuttered restaurants and boarded-up pubs. When the Chancellor delivered her Budget last month, she may as well have called last orders too.
James Fowler owns The Larder House in Southbourne, Dorset.