Wed 26th Nov 2025 - UKHospitality: permanently lower multiplier for hospitality businesses ‘is not enough’ UKHospitality – permanently lower multiplier for hospitality businesses ‘is not enough’: UKHospitality has said that the permanently lower multiplier for hospitality businesses announced in today’s Budget “is not enough”. Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed she will introduce permanently lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure firms, paid for by higher levies on big properties. But Kate Nicholls, chair of UKHospitality, said the government should have gone further. “Bricks and mortar hospitality businesses are being taxed out, and they have been penalised by the broken business rates system for far too long,” she said. “Today, the chancellor recognised the importance of hospitality and provided a permanently lower multiplier for hospitality businesses – reforms secured by UKHospitality. However, the 5p discount is only a quarter of the maximum 20p discount the government proposed last year. This is particularly frustrating given changes to business rates valuations will mean that many hospitality businesses’ tax bills will still significantly rise, alongside increases to the minimum wage adding extra cost. Business tax rates for hospitality must continue to fall for the rest of this parliament. The government has heeded our calls for significant transitional relief for businesses, which will mitigate the worst impacts of the revaluation. Hospitality remains under significant cost pressures, with the highest tax burden in the economy. We will continue to campaign for additional support for the sector, including further business rates discounts.” The chancellor also confirmed previous reports that the minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds will increase by 8.5% from next April, from £10 to £10.85 – more than double the rate of inflation, while the national living wage, which is paid to over-21s, will rise by 4.1% to £12.71 an hour. Alcohol duty will rise in line with inflation, Reeves said, while bingo duty will be scrapped from April 2026. Reeves, who claimed business rates for some businesses would be the lowest since 1991, also said she would “stop online firms from undercutting” businesses by ensuring customs duty on parcels of any value. Simon Dodd, chief executive of Young’s, said: “Our teams sit right at the heart of every Young’s pub, and we are proud to back fair pay, but these wage increases land another £1.4bn blow to our sector, adding to the significant pressure we are already grappling with. The government has not gone far enough to tackle the other unfair costs weighing down pubs and has added more pressure with the rise in alcohol duty, so it will continue to be challenging for pubs to keep rewarding our people and keep doors open. As a result, it will just get harder for young people to find jobs in an industry that’s always been a major employer for them.” Loungers executive chairman Alex Reilley said: “The rates multiplier reduction is small beans, and any saving is likely to be wiped out by the 2026 revaluation. This government is systematically destroying hospitality and retail businesses, and in turn, decimating our high streets and town centres. Our trade bodies work hard and are dealing with a government that’s clearly not prepared to listen nor seem to have respect for our sector. I have the utmost respect for their efforts – that said, we’re not getting anywhere! Surely now is the time to recognise that, instead of numerous trade bodies each with differing agendas, hospitality needs one organisation and one voice?” Andrew Crook, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers and chair of the Independent Hospitality Alliance, said: “While we welcome the support for apprenticeships for small businesses, many are reducing their teams rather than expanding them due to the cost of doing business. Business rates reform will do more to benefit the larger chains rather than smaller businesses. This budget will affect many family businesses serving the communities up and down the country and has given them little confidence in the future.” Everett Fieldgate, chief executive of dessert parlour operator Creams Café, said: “The UK’s high street operators are being negatively impacted by a business-rates system that is outdated and creates an imbalanced competitive environment. For years, successive governments have acknowledged this, yet meaningful reform fails to arrive. A vibrant, diverse, and healthy high street requires structural change, not incremental adjustments – the high street cannot wait beyond 2026 for yet another consultation or half-measure.” Ash Corbett-Collins, chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale, said: “The decision to introduce permanently lower business rates for hospitality businesses in England from next May is a positive step and is long overdue. But we are bitterly disappointed that alcohol duty has been hiked, which can only risk more pubs and breweries being lost to the communities they serve. Some tinkering around the edges of the licensing system just doesn’t cut it when no support has been given on VAT, energy bills, alcohol duty or employer national insurance contributions.” Steve Cox, chief executive of Keystone Brewing Group, said: “Today’s Budget offers some acknowledgement of the pressures facing hospitality through the commitment to permanently lower business rates, but for breweries, the reality is far more challenging. Rising wage costs, frozen tax thresholds until 2031 and continued uncertainty around alcohol duty all tighten the squeeze on margins that are already razor-thin across the sector. Once again, we’re left without the long-term clarity required to invest with confidence, to hire, or to expand.” Greg Mulholland, campaign director for the Campaign for Pubs, said: “This is a deeply disappointing budget that does nothing to address the crisis facing the UK’s world-famous pubs. There’s some limited support for some pubs in England through business rates, but no support whatsoever for pubs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Altogether, this budget will mean yet more job cuts in pubs and more publicans unable to make a living.”