WILL JONES
One pub will close every day this year as Labour’s tax raid makes it “impossible to make a profit”, with 33% of sales revenue now going to the taxman, the British Beer and Pub Association has warned. The Telegraph has the story.
The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) predicted that 378 pubs will shut across England, Wales and Scotland before the end of the year – up from 350 closures last year.
It will take pub numbers to their lowest level in a century, the BBPA warned.
The body, which represents the pub industry, attributed the expected jump in closures to cost pressures on landlords. Worryingly, it said that for every £3 spent on pints and food in a pub, £1 now went straight to the taxman.
It comes after Labour launched a raid on pubs and retailers in the spring, pushing up employers’ National Insurance contributions (NIC) and lowering the threshold at which they needed to pay them.
The Chancellor also increased the minimum wage by 6.7% to £12.21 an hour from April, while changes to business rates have pushed costs even higher for pubs.
The BBPA has previously suggested the changes cost each UK pub about £14,000 on average.
On Thursday, the industry group warned that hundreds of pubs were now preparing to close their doors, which would lead to almost 6,000 jobs being axed by the end of the year.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, labelled it an “absolute tragedy”.
He added: “Every publican that I’ve spoken to – and I’ve visited nine over the weekend in Clacton, just to go and chat and see how they’re getting on – every single person says that the NIC rise has taken away their profit. Every single one.”
Sir Tim Martin, the boss of pub giant Wetherspoon, said supermarkets were being allowed to undercut pubs and called for ministers to act.
Worth reading in full.
Featured image: Trip Advisor
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