Pubs in Scotland are likely to share a multi-million pound windfall from the Chancellor’s support package amid warnings that it will not be enough to prevent more closures.
The Scottish government will receive the funding after Rachel Reeves confirmed that pubs in England will get a 15% cut to new business rates bills from April.
This will be followed by a two-year real-terms freeze, as well as a review into the method used to value them for business rates.
It will save the average pub £1,650 in 2026/27. Around 75% of pubs will see their bills fall or stay flat over the same year with the pub sector as a whole paying 8% less in business rates in 2029 than they do currently.
The UK government has also announced a High Street Strategy to help ensure retail, leisure and hospitality businesses.
Ms Reeves said: “If we’re going to restore the pride in our communities, we need our pubs and our high streets to thrive.
“We’re backing British pubs with additional support, and our new High Streets Strategy will help tackle the long-term challenges that our much-loved retail, leisure and hospitality businesses have faced.”
The new support comes just a day after Revolution Bars announced the closure of 21 venues and fell into administration. There have been calls for help from across the industry, while some pubs barred Labour MPs in protest at their high costs.
While the new funding was welcomed, there was criticism that it does not go far enough to stem the closure of outlets.
Joe Phelan, money.co.uk business savings expert, said: “Over half of grassroots music venues are now operating at a loss and with more than 2,000 pubs having closed in the last five years alone, the scale of the challenge is undeniable.”
Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, said: “While any recognition of the pressures facing pubs and music venues is welcome, this intervention amounts to little more than a drop in the ocean when set against the reality of the current tax system and the cumulative damage inflicted by the last two budgets.
“This policy position is frankly baffling. Pubs, bars, nightclubs, live music venues and cultural spaces are all part of the same fragile ecosystem, facing the same structural challenges and carrying the same disproportionate tax burdens.
“To support one part while ignoring the rest is not just short-sighted, it is fundamentally disconnected from how this industry actually operates.”
Louise Hellem, CBI chief economist, said: “Targeted support for pubs will be welcomed by those businesses, but it does not address the fundamental problem that our whole business rates system is broken. What we need is genuine reform, not another layer of complexity.
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