Bitter sweet

Rescue package is only a sticking plaster, warn pubs

- BY GRAHAM HISCOTT, Business and Consumer Editor, LUCY THORNTON and ASHLEY COWBURN Deputy Political Editor

HARD-GRAFTING publicans last night pleaded with Rachel Reeves to go further with her rescue package before mounting debts force them to throw in the towel.

Labour yesterday announced business rates for boozers in England will be cut by 15% from April, saving the average pub a claimed £1,650, with rates also frozen for the following two years.

And boozers will also be granted permission to stay open until the early hours this summer so thirsty footie fans can cheer on the home nations in the World Cup, which should see a huge boost in trade.

But landlords last night queued up to attack the package as “an insult”. Rosie Nagaty, who runs the Old George Inn in Sykehouse, near Doncaster, South Yorks, with husband John, calculated the discount would save them around £50 a month in the first year.

“Pubs are closing across the UK every day,” she said.

“There are three that have closed this week in my area. They haven't closed based on £50 a month - they have gone into the red by tens of thousands.”

Andy Lennox who runs The Old Thatch in Wimborne, Dorset, led the campaign to bar Labour MPs from hospitality venues in protest at rising taxes after November's Budget, which left many facing increases in business rates bills. He said: “We have been given a discount on a bill rise. This is a bill that we can't afford to pay anyway.

“It's been discounted down, but it’s still going up. So whilst it is welcomed that the government is listening, we don't think it goes far enough.”

Peter Collie, landlord of The Horseshoe Inn near London Bridge, said: “A lot of people’s business rates have gone up by huge amounts - 50%, 75% and some over 100%.