Businesses across the UK have been hammered by endless tax rises since Labour entered government in 2024. There are 16 pubs in Castle Point that employ over 750 people – benefiting our community and local economy in so many ways. We Conservatives believe that when our high streets struggle, our communities fall into decline.
I have always championed pubs in Parliament, and I am deeply concerned about the future of the industry due to Labour’s reckless economic policies. The Conservative Party have listened to pubs and have since announced a list of measures that we would introduce if elected:
- Abolishing business rates for thousands of high street businesses, including pubs and shops
- Cutting electricity bills for local businesses with our Cheap Power Plan
- Hiring 10,000 extra police to crush crime on our high streets
- Establishing a National Pothole Patrol to deploy modern, specialist road-repair machines at scale, on our high streets and beyond
- Cutting red tape for businesses by repealing Angela Rayner’s Unemployment Act
- Defending key pillars of the community such as post offices, pubs and pharmacies
Record In Government:
Alcohol/Beer Duty
In 2013, the Government took the decision to end the beer duty escalator, and beer duty has been frozen or cut several times since then. As a result of these changes, a typical pint became cheaper and saved both pubs and consumers billions.
After 2023, reforms were brought in to simplify the system and further duty freezes were announced in every Conservative Budget. Unfortunately, the Labour government increased the main rates of alcohol duty and announced that all duty rates would increase in line with RPI inflation from 1 February 2026.
Brexit Pubs Guarantee
At the Budget in 2020, the Government announced that it would review alcohol duty, to reconsider the way that the duty system would work after the UK left the EU. At the Spring Budget in 2023, the Government announced how these reforms would be implemented.
Firstly, savings on draught drinks in the pub were implemented for all draught products below 8.5% ABV through increasing Draught Relief. This was part of the Government’s Brexit Pubs Guarantee - a commitment that every pint in every pub pays less duty than their supermarket equivalent. Secondly, tax was cut on lots on drinks like sparkling wines and ready-made drinks. Finally, the new Small Producer Relief was announced to help small businesses and start-ups create new drinks, innovate and grow. These reforms cut duty on pints in pubs by up to 11p when sold in supermarkets.
The Government also announced that from 1st February to 1st August 2024, all alcohol duty would be frozen. Not increasing alcohol duty in line with inflation saved a further 3p to the duty on a typical pint of beer, 2p to a pint of cider, 4p to a glass of whisky, or 18p to a bottle of wine.
Retail, Hospitality and Leisure business rates relief were also extended for a fifth year to 2024-25. This means around 230,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties received 75% relief, up to a cap of £110,000 per business, on their business rates bills from the 2024-25 tax year. This represented a tax cut worth nearly £2.4 billion and came on top of one third of business properties being taken out of paying business rates completely thanks to other government reliefs. The small business multiplier for business rates was also frozen for a fourth consecutive year, protecting over a million ratepayers from an inflation increase in their bills.
Support For Pubs During Coronavirus
To protect jobs, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was extended in response to continued restrictions, and to give people and businesses across the whole United Kingdom the certainty they needed. Under the extension, the Government paid 80 per cent of wages up to a cap of £2,500.
One-off top-up grants were also announced, worth up to £9,000 per property, to help businesses through to the spring. For those businesses not eligible for the grants, a £594 million discretionary fund was made available by the Government as a matter of urgency. The new one-off grants were in addition to billions of pounds of existing business support, including grants worth up to £3,000 for closed businesses, and up to £2,100 per month for impacted businesses once they reopen.
Restart Grants
The last Conservative Government provided ‘Restart Grants’ in England worth up to £6,000 per premises for non-essential retail businesses and up to £18,000 per premises for hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym businesses, giving them the cash certainty they need to plan ahead and safely relaunch trading. The Government also provided all local authorities in England with an additional £425 million of discretionary business grant funding, on top of the £1.6 billion already allocated. This brings the total cost of cash grants provided by the Government to £25 billion.
