Nigel Farage is to unveil a £3billion tax relief package designed to rescue Britain’s struggling pub industry.
The Reform UK leader’s five-point plan, set to be announced on Tuesday, proposes slashing beer duty by ten per cent from its current rate of 49p.
Should publicans pass these savings on to their customers, patrons could see around 5p knocked off the cost of their pint.
The ambitious rescue scheme would begin at £2.29billion in its inaugural year, before rising to £2.9billion by year four.
Reform’s announcement arrives less than a week after Rachel Reeves offered pubs a temporary 15 per cent discount on business rates following her Budget U-turn.
Despite the relief, figures within the hospitality sector have warned that the Chancellor’s measures do not go far enough to prevent further closures.
Reform has also pledged to halve the current 20 per cent VAT rate across the entire hospitality sector, a move it argues would establish greater tax parity with supermarkets where food remains VAT-exempt.
Business rates for pubs would be phased out entirely over four years, with high street establishments receiving priority treatment before relief expands to cover all premises by 2029/30.
The Reform leader’s five-point plan, announced on Monday, proposes slashing beer duty by ten per cent
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Ms Reeves’s Budget imposed a 76 per cent rise in business rates, leaving the typical pub facing an additional £12,900 burden over three years once the existing freeze concludes.
The hospitality industry would also be shielded from the Chancellor’s employers’ National Insurance hike from 13.8 to 15 per cent, which the sector estimates has added £1bn to its wage bill.
Lee Anderson, the Reform MP set to detail the rescue plan today, declared that his party held the solution to “end the pubs crisis”.
“The loss of one pub is not just the loss of livelihood for a landlord, or the loss of a local employment hub. The loss of one pub is a loss to all of us as inheritors of a tradition dating back to Roman rule,” he said.
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The typical pub is facing an additional £12,900 burden over three years after Ms Reeves’ Budget
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Mr Anderson launched a scathing attack on both the Conservatives and Labour, which presided over thousands of pub closures during the past decade.
“Any contrition they show is false,” he blasted.
Reform’s entire package would be financed by reversing Labour’s decision to abolish the two-child benefit cap, a policy currently covering approximately 510,000 families.
By the decade’s end, Reform calculates the VAT reduction would cost £1.9billion every year, with the NI exemption adding £100million and beer duty cuts contributing £400million.
Lee Anderson said that ‘the loss of one pub is a loss to all of us’
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The complete elimination of business rates would require a further £580million by 2029/30.
The party’s fifth and final measure targets what it describes as outdated ownership rules favouring large pub companies.
Currently, half of Britain’s 47,000 pubs belong to major corporations, leaving landlords bound by restrictive tied contracts.
Under these arrangements, publicans pay up to 80 per cent more for a standard 11-gallon keg compared with open market prices.
Reform has committed to overhauling this legislation in a bid to enable pub owners to operate free from such constraints.
