Interest in context on "government pub rates". New tax scheme?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e57dexly1o
> In her November Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back business rate discounts that have been in force since the pandemic from 75% to 40% - and announced that there would be no discount at all from April. That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords with the prospect of much higher rates bills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_rates_in_England
> Properties are assessed in a rating list with a rateable value, a valuation of their annual rental value on a fixed valuation date using assumptions fixed by statute. Rating lists are created and maintained by the Valuation Office Agency, a UK government executive agency.
You pay a percentage of the hypothetical rent as tax. There is a lower rate if you're a small business, and there are also tax reliefs for various reasons (charity, partial building occupation, etc.)
But pubs have been in trouble for quite some time: https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2025/05/27/numbe...
Pubs have high costs, small margins and customers are extremely price-sensitive. What pubs are generally asking for is more types of relief, because what we tend to see is pubs close, people in the area become more isolated, and the building remains empty for years thereafter. [] Pubs appreciated the post-COVID relief, but tax rates are about to shoot up.
[] fun fact: if the building is vacant, its landlord must pay rates as if it's 100% occupied. Hence this brazen scheme where a man puts a snail farm in every room so you can pay the rates of an agricultural enterprise: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/04/...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/23/ye-of-littl...
Many deaths were postponed because their taxes were reduced due to Covid. Those taxes are now returning to normal levels. This will result in a glut of deaths, as pubs that were just hanging on go under.
The policy question is, basically, do we want to subsidize pubs because they're part of our national culture, even though we don't use them nearly as much as we used to?
But pubs are a weird place to draw the line.
Just get rid of all the third spaces in an area and turn it into a lifeless residential suburb or something. Once pubs are gone it'll be something else.
Without this more pubs could exist. So I don’t think it’s a case of subsidising as much as removing the disincentive.
Beer was far more expensive 25 years ago - £1.60 in 2000 in the student pub when I first started buying my own beer, that was about half an hour at minimum wage.
On the cost side: Wages are higher, energy costs more, rent is higher (because if the pub can't operate the owner can get planning permission to convert it to a private dwelling and sell it for £600k rather than making £12k a year in rent)
On the demand side: People are healthier and drink less. It's nowhere near as acceptable to go out for a few pints at lunch time. People can't drive to a rural pub.
Yeah but then you've to drink at spoons.
Wetherspoons are definitely pubs. They just have a reputation for cheap drinks and cheap meals. But there’s still a significant proportion of people who go there for drinks only.
It’s more like a drinking warehouse with carpet on the floor and a menu of mostly beige food than a larger version of a cosy country pub with a roaring fire and a varied food menu sometimes involving vegetables that have not been deep fried.
TBF their curry club and other food specials are basically subsidising old bachelors to the point of being an ersatz social service @ £8.45 to £11.45, including a drink, for 12 hours of service every Thursday.
https://thewetherspoonsmenu.uk/wetherspoons-curry-club-menu/
Generally speaking, its best described as the RyanAir of pubs. It gets you there, cheaply, but the juice may not be worth the squeeze in terms of ambience and clientele.
(I know in some countries it's actually not -- Bratislava being one surprising example, though some cops were really chill when I was like hey sorry, I thought this was allowed, it's cold out so I bought a pounder and I wanted to warm up on the way to my hostel I'm not trying to bother anyone... though maybe they may have been letting me slide mostly because they were amused by what a pounder is once I defined it)
(A pounder is a big can of beer that got it's nickname because American frat bros will "pound" (chug) it to get very drunk quickly in places where the sales of beer are looser than liquor)
(Note a US pint is about 474ml compared to the UK pint which is 568ml).
Of course US fluid ounces are a different size to UK (Imperial) fluid ounces. Plus the UK has 20 (Imperial) fluid ounces in a UK pint whilst the US has 16 (US) fluid ounces in a US pint.
How does it go? “A pint’s a pound the whole world around, except the UK where a pint of water is a pound and a quarter.”
As for drinking in a park, it is either something you do in the height of summer, or something you do if you are a tramp. There’s not much middle ground.
So how do spoons make a profit?
The main difference that I see is that they buy cheap properties and thus don't have crushing rents.
What this page doesn't show is the increase in rent for these buildings.
Dunno how much of an effect that is, it can only account for so much.
Think about the price of a keg of beer - much cheaper/pint than buying beer at a pub or from anywhere else in a smaller size. Very high-volume customers have contracts with distributors that can get them even better deals, sometimes significantly better.
Alcohol is pretty much always sold at a huge markup though - 4-5x is standard in the US. UK regulation might be different, but it's likely that the majority of costs in the pub business are in insurance and licensing rather than alcohol and rent.
But not many pubs are crappy in these respects.
The main reasons why fewer people are visiting average or good pubs are: * cost of living is going up so many people have less disposable income * the younger generations are much less interested in alcohol than previous generations
The latter point is an interesting one. There are two wildly different drivers for this that I’ve witnessed.
Many of the under 25s now either don’t drink alcohol at all, or only drink a fraction of what their elders did. Many prefer to just go to the gym instead (which is the millenials third space).
On the flip side, some of the children of my friends and family say that alcohol in pubs is just too expensive, so they get their kicks from recreational drugs like weed or ket.
The number of people who have the disposable income to go to the pub regularly is falling in the UK, and the mainstay of the pub was often the working class and they are being priced out by everything getting more expensive.
There aren’t enough people with enough disposable income to weather the storms and keep going to the pub regardless, and therefore pubs (in general) are in deep trouble.
No, but the tax on food - which is where a lot of money lies, for most pubs in this day and age - is. Also, business rates end up being significantly higher per unit of alcohol sold. This means stores can keep alcohol prices very low (even under cost, as a promotional item).
Add to that that alcohol consumption rates are decreasing overall, sugar tax affecting non-alcoholic drinks, energy prices skyrocketing, etc.
Reducing taxes are not subsidizes. Subsidizes are when the government gives tax money to a business, not when they take a little less from a business.
People might think it's the same equation, but the difference in reality is enormous for the economy.
That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords with the prospect of much higher rates bills.