High Street shops, pharmacies and music venues have called on Rachel Reeves to axe the looming increases to business rates for them as well as pubs.The government is expected to announce a climbdown on the increases to business rates bills faced by pubs in England in the coming days.Landlords and pub owners have been fiercely critical of the impending hikes, with more than 1,000 pubs banning Labour MPs from their premises.But other lobby groups and backbench MPs have urged the government to widen the relief, saying many other kinds of businesses will not be able to pay the higher bills.In her November Budget, the chancellor scaled back business rate discounts that have been in force since the pandemic from 75% to 40%, and announced that there would be no discount at all from April.That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords facing the prospect of much higher bills.The BBC understands the climbdown will apply only to pubs and not the whole hospitality sector.The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) questioned why its members -– which include High Street shops, restaurants and cafes — would not be given the same relief. Its chief executive Andrew Goodacre said independent retailers “face exactly the same challenges as pubs but have been left out of discussions about additional support”.”Perhaps independent retailers need to follow the pubs’ example and start banning MPs from their premises too,” he said.Surinder Arora, who operates a number of hotels in the UK, said a potential carve-out only for pubs was “not righ …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnHigh Street shops, pharmacies and music venues have called on Rachel Reeves to axe the looming increases to business rates for them as well as pubs.The government is expected to announce a climbdown on the increases to business rates bills faced by pubs in England in the coming days.Landlords and pub owners have been fiercely critical of the impending hikes, with more than 1,000 pubs banning Labour MPs from their premises.But other lobby groups and backbench MPs have urged the government to widen the relief, saying many other kinds of businesses will not be able to pay the higher bills.In her November Budget, the chancellor scaled back business rate discounts that have been in force since the pandemic from 75% to 40%, and announced that there would be no discount at all from April.That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords facing the prospect of much higher bills.The BBC understands the climbdown will apply only to pubs and not the whole hospitality sector.The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) questioned why its members -– which include High Street shops, restaurants and cafes — would not be given the same relief. Its chief executive Andrew Goodacre said independent retailers “face exactly the same challenges as pubs but have been left out of discussions about additional support”.”Perhaps independent retailers need to follow the pubs’ example and start banning MPs from their premises too,” he said.Surinder Arora, who operates a number of hotels in the UK, said a potential carve-out only for pubs was “not righ …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
