Glass half empty: inside the bruising battle for UK pubs

As a crucial Budget looms, the country's squeezed publicans tell Dan Haygarth that they cannot afford more bad news

- Dan Haygarth

There is only one thing on Fiona Hornsby's mind as she readies her pubs for the busy Christmas period – and it's not the throngs of happy revellers celebrating the festive season in the coming months.

Instead she, like many publicans across the country, is nervously looking ahead just a few days to Rachel Reeves's Budget on Wednesday. Britain's pubs are bracing themselves after a bruising few years where they have endured Covid lockdowns, the cost of living crisis and squeezed margins.

The number of pubs in England and Wales hit its lowest on record in 2022 and has continued to fall. More than 400 called last orders in 2024 and, according to trade body UKHospitality, two venues are now closing every day.

The hospitality industry has partially blamed successive governments for this malaise and hit out at Ms Reeves's decision to hit employers with a rise in national insurance contributions and cuts to business rate relief from 75 per cent to 40 per cent.

Similar measures to the last Budget year, or a rumoured increase to alcohol duty, would be disastrous, according to Ms Hornsby, who owns three venues in Liverpool city centre - The Denbigh Castle, The Bridewell and The Pen Factory.

She told The Independent: “We are absolutely dreading what will come [in the Budget]. We are just terrified. It’s not ‘is it going to cost more?’, it’s ‘how much [more]?’. You’re expecting to get all of your accounts out again, look at all your product prices again and look at where you could save anything.