From Wetherspoon to independent locals, pub bosses are sounding the alarm over a possible tax raid on drinkers in the Autumn Budget that they say will send prices climbing yet again.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is said to be planning to raise alcohol duty by more than 4 per cent in the Budget on Wednesday.
That would see a bottle of red wine get 15p more expensive, and comes after a slew of cost increases for pubs and brewers in the last year that have seen many smaller venues go bust.
Wetherspoon chief Tim Martin told Metro: ‘Pubs and the hospitality industry bore the brunt of the big tax increases in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) only a few months ago.’
He said increasing alcohol duty would ‘again affect pubs more than any other industry, when most have not recovered from the pandemic’.
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Pubs have lost half of their beer volumes to supermarkets in the last 25 years, he said, adding: ‘No industry can survive that level of attrition.’
Wetherspoon has nearly 800 pubs across the UK. It took a £60 million annual hit because of hikes to employer taxes and the minimum wage in last year’s Budget.
Clive Watson, cofounder of City Pub Group, who now runs a smaller chain called Inda Pub Group, said the potential increase would be ‘piling on more taxes on an overtaxed industry.’
‘It’s becoming vindictive and means higher prices for the consumer,’ he added.
Alcohol duty also rose in last year’s Budget, but Reeves included an exemption on draught beer that saw pints poured in pubs get a 1p reduction.
It is not clear whether the same allowance will be made this year – but the country has already seen 901 pubs close down this year, according to the Campaign for Real Ale.
Rox Marjoram, who co-owns five pubs and a wine shop in the south east of England, told Metro raising alcohol duty ‘penalises everybody in the trade’ and that ‘any increase is going to be bad news for us’.
‘It is already very difficult for anyone in the sector to make money these days,’ said Rox, whose hospitality firm Gusto Pronto employs about 140 people.
‘We have had to take on so much additional cost as a result of the NICs changes last year,’ she said, describing it as ‘one thing after another’.
‘We’re all paying much bigger bills as a result,’ she said.
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