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Tue 2nd Dec 2025 - Sacha Lord: ‘Budget was a shocking betrayal, I honestly do not see how pubs can survive the hammer blow’ |
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Sacha Lord – ‘Budget was a shocking betrayal, I honestly do not see how pubs can survive the hammer blow’: Night Time Industries Association chairman Sacha Lord has called last week’s Budget “a shocking betrayal” which he “does not see how pubs can survive”. Lord said he sees a world where “the quirky, independent inns and public houses that were once a mainstay of our culture will cease to exist altogether”. Writing in the Daily Mail, Lord, the former night time economy advisor for Greater Manchester, said: “Goodbye to our beloved British pubs. I honestly do not see how they can survive the hammer blow of last week's Budget. And the same is true for the whole of the UK's hospitality industry. In an act of shocking betrayal, chancellor Rachel Reeves has sentenced countless restaurants, hotels, cafes and coffee shops to death, hiking rates by tens of thousands of pounds for individual businesses. Some will see their business rates rise by 400% or more. That spells immediate closure for many, with devastating effects for local economies. One Lancashire publican contacted me in despair at the weekend. The wretched man is facing complete wipeout, and his mental health is in tatters. Already struggling with debts from the pandemic, he will have no choice but to shut his pub before the rates bill arrives. His chances of selling the business are slim. And when he hands back the keys to the brewery, he and his family will lose their home – because they live over the pub. His marriage is buckling under the strain. He will almost certainly have to go on the dole, since few businesses are hiring middle-aged ex-publicans. Nobody wins, because he will be costing the Treasury money instead of paying taxes. It's a personal calamity, and one being repeated on a massive scale across the country.” Lord said Lara Trubshaw of the Peterville Inn in St Agnes, Cornwall, told him her business rates have gone from £18,500 to £73,000. He said: “Very few small businesses can withstand on-the-spot increases in taxes of more than £50,000. The fact is that Labour sold a pack of bare faced lies to the hospitality industry at the last election, and I was one of those who fell for it. Eighteen months ago, I was a Labour Party member. I was there at the manifesto launch in Manchester, when Ms Reeves stood up and proclaimed herself the chancellor of business and growth. Here was a politician, engaging with entrepreneurs who run hospitality businesses, and assuring us that she understood our needs. In November 2022, Labour ran a campaign on social media, promising to scrap business rates and replace them with a fairer system to revitalise our high streets and drive economic growth. Last week's Budget gave the lie to that pledge. We were expecting that increased levies would be targeted at high-value properties such as warehouses owned by international corporations like Amazon. And we were told that a lower percentage of rateable value would be levied on smaller sites in our towns and cities. That is not what happened.” Sacha said last year’s Budget has already done “terrible, lasting damage to the hospitality industry” and cost at least 100,000 jobs. “The great majority of those jobs were for young people – the ones working in pubs and restaurants on Saturdays or a couple of evenings a week, trying to earn some cash while studying at college or university,” he said. “Casual employment on that scale has been swept away, and that's a catastrophe for businesses as well as thousands of young people who are desperate to work but cannot thanks to the chancellor's indefensible policies. I can't make up my mind whether Rachel Reeves simply doesn’t understand how the hospitality industry works, or if she just doesn't care that she is driving thousands of businesses to the wall. Perhaps it's both – ignorance and apathy. Yet hospitality is the third biggest employer in the UK economy. Growth is impossible unless our hotels, restaurants, pubs and clubs, bars and cafes are thriving. We are already one of the most heavily taxed sectors in the UK. Take the price of a pint. It averages £6.50 in Greater Manchester and nearer £7.40 in London. The profit on that is tiny, just 12p – less than 2%. VAT, alcohol duty, the brewery's charges, staff costs, rent and all the other overheads such as utility bills leave the publican with just a handful of coppers. Yet the chancellor believes pubs can afford to absorb a rise of several hundred per cent in rates. As footfall slumps in the new year, I fear the toll will be terrible. In the past 25 years, Britain has lost around a third of its pubs – about 15,000 of them. Once they close their doors, they are doomed – demolished, more often than not, to make way for housing. With them, we lose a crucial part of our communities. So much of the local economy relies on them. Each pub is at the centre of its own ecosystem. Kill that and the economy for miles around suffers. It's self-destructive madness.”
Premium Club subscribers to receive new searchable and segmented New Openings Database on Friday: The next Propel New Openings Database will be sent to Premium Club subscribers on Friday (5 December). The database will show the details of 181 site openings, including which company has opened a site or its plans to open one in the future. The database will have details on what type of site it is and its location, and there will also be a website link to the businesses. The database is published on a monthly basis and Premium Club subscribers will also receive a 11,986-word report on the 181 new additions to the database. It is segmented into seven categories – cafe bakery, casual dining, experiential leisure, fine dining, hotels, pubs and bars, and quick service restaurants (QSR) – making it even easier for users to search. The database includes new openings in the QSR sector such as KoKoDoo, the Korean fried chicken concept opening in London’s Fulham Broadway, Vietnamese street food concept HOP, opening in London’s King’s Cross, and fast chicken brand ChicKing, opening in Bournemouth. Premium Club subscribers also receive access to five other databases: the Turnover & Profits Blue Book, the Multi-Site Database, the UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database, the UK Food and Beverage Franchisee Database and the Who’s Who of UK Hospitality. All Premium Club subscribers will be offered a 20% discount on tickets to Propel paid-for events and discounts on specialist sector reports. Operators that are Premium Club subscribers are also able to send up to four members of staff to each of our four Multi-Club Conferences for free. Premium Club subscribers receive their daily Propel Info newsletter 11 hours earlier than standard subscribers, at 7pm the evening before. They also receive videos of presentations at eight Propel conference events two weeks after they are held. This represents around 100 videos of industry insight over the course of the year. Premium Club subscribers also receive exclusive opinion columns every Friday at 5pm, which include the thoughts of Propel group editor Mark Wingett and a host of industry leaders from across the sector. A Premium Club subscription costs an annual sum of £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Premium Club for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or supplier. Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com today to sign up.
Anglian Country Inns owner – ‘this is far harder than covid, we’ll have no choice but to pass on costs to customers’: James Nye, owner of gastro-pub operator Anglian Country Inns, has said “this is far harder than covid” and “we’ll have no choice but to pass on costs to customers” following the latest Budget. Nye oversees ten pubs in the East Anglia region, and with margins already razor thin, is concerned about the future under Rachel Reeves. He told the Daily Mail: “When we emerged from the covid pandemic, we thought we’d endured the worst that could be thrown at us. We were wrong. What we’re facing now is far harder, because at least during covid we had recognition and meaningful government support through furlough and business loans. Now, it feels like the government are piling on pressure at the very moment we need their backing most. What will truly scupper us now is the 8.5% uplift in the minimum wage for 18-to 20-year-olds to £10.85. We were already grappling with last year’s national insurance and minimum wage rises.” Nye said like all responsible business owners, he wants to pay his teams as well as he can. “But the reality is that shrinking margins mean this may end up disincentivising us from employing young people at all,” he said. “That’s a real shame, as pubs like ours are major employers of youngsters. We’ve had remarkable success stories, watching talent flourish to the point where twenty-somethings manage large budgets and lead thriving teams.” A budget meeting this week only served to underline his fears. “I saw our costs will rise again next year,” Nye explained. “The only realistic way to absorb it is passing costs to customers – yet footfall is already falling because people can’t afford to go out as often.” Nye remains baffled by Reeves’ claims that pubs will pay lower business rates. “I honestly cannot understand how she can claim this, as everyone I know is paying more,” he said. “We know what that means: pubs closing at a rate of two a day. That creates less revenue for government coffers and leaves a deeper hole in communities.”
Choice Hotels owner – ‘it’s never felt tougher than it has over the last few years, and if we fall, many fall with us’: The owner of Choice Hotels has said “it’s never felt tougher than it has over the last few years” following last week's Budget “and if we fall, many fall with us”. Eddie Nelder owns the family business overseeing five hotels in the north west, that grew from a modest boarding inn in Birmingham at the end of the Second World War to establishments across Blackpool and the Lake District. Nelder told the Daily Mail: “We've seen our share of ups and downs in that time, but I can honestly say it’s never felt tougher than it has over the last few years. We’ve told successive governments that we simply can't survive the way things are going – and this recent budget has landed like the final body blow.”Nelder said while surviving the pandemic was challenging, since then, rising utility bills and wage pressures have left his business close to the edge. “Last April’s announcement cost us £600,000, pushing our operating costs up by £3.2m in the last five years. With a turnover of £20m, that increase has quite literally wiped out our profit,” he said. His initial reaction to the chancellor's announcement about a further increase to the minimum wage was pure disbelief. He said: “That means finding another £300,000 a year. We run at 90% capacity year-round, so it can’t realistically come from more guests. And it won’t come from redundancies either – we’ve already made 20 staff redundant and are working on a shoestring, running lean. So, the only option left is to cut whatever else we can, wherever we can. The future feels so bleak that I’ve been waking up asking myself what the point of it all really is. I work 80 hours a week, but more hours can’t fix a business model that keeps being pulled apart from the outside in. We’re proud of what we built, and we want to keep building – not just for us, but for the communities that grew with us. Right now, it feels like we’re fighting for survival alone. I just wish the people making the decisions could see what we see: businesses like ours don't just serve people, we hold ecosystems together. If we fall, many fall with us. And that’s not a future anyone should accept willingly.”
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