Reform UK unveils a five point plan to save Britain's
pubs
Reform UK is proud to unveil our five point plan to save
Britain's pubs and reverse the damage inflicted by the Tories and
now Labour.
Pubs are central to our community life. That is why we are
launching a fiscally neutral five point plan to protect British
pubs, fully funded by reinstating the two child limit on
Universal Credit (save for British working families).
We will:
- Reduce VAT to 10% for the hospitality sector
- Scrap the employer National Insurance increase for
hospitality businesses
- Cut beer duty by 10%
- Implement staggered business rate abolition for all pubs
- Change regulation (the ‘beer orders') to support landlords
Tory tax rises, followed by Labour's budget, have pushed pubs to
the brink. The number of pubs has fallen from around 69,000 to
approximately 45,000 by the end of 2024.
Reform UK MP said:
“The British pub is the heart and soul of our great nation. 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.
"A Reform Government will stop the uniparty's attacks on our way
of life and take immediate action to end the pubs crisis. Only
Reform will save our pubs.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- Beer duty is a fixed-tax per pint (£4.80 per beer), and is
currently 49p. So, cutting that by 10% gives us 5p. The new beer
price is £4.75 per beer before the VAT cuts.
- The VAT is currently 20% on the net-of-vat price. So, 4.75 =
1.20 * (net price). Net Price is then 3.96. We then re-apply the
new 10% vat here: 1.10 * 3.96 = 4.36.
- So, the total direct reduction in cost is 4.80-4.36 = 44p.
From the PoV of the consumer, price goes down by 9.2% = 44p/£4.8.
- There are indirect effects from the reduction in NI, business
rates since that'll reduce pub overheads, and potentially show up
in further cuts.
Two Child Cap:
- There are about 500k households currently affected by the two
child benefit cap (families with three or more children).
- 470k families in 2024/25, and 510k families in 2025/26. All
of these will now receive child benefits for their third children
on under the new government policy from April 2026.
- Of these households, only about 3,700 consist of two
full-time working, British parents: these are the only households
that the Reform UK policy would target lifting the cap for,
re-instating it for the others.
- Reform's policy of reinstating the cap for all but 3%
(British working families) saves £2.9 billion a year.
Click here to see
the policy document
