Business rates will “kill off” the high street, says pub chain boss

The boss of a chain that owns 1,365 community pubs in the UK has added to the voices calling for an overhaul of the business rates system. 

Chris Jowsey, chief executive of Admiral Taverns, is the latest figure in the hospitality industry to demand reform, cautioning that closures will blight our high streets if warnings aren’t heeded. 

Jowsey is ringing the same alarm bells that the likes of the Co-op were towards the tail end of last year. The consumer cooperative said that the UK could see 60,000 small shops and 150,000 jobs disappear if radical change doesn’t happen and fast.

Twenty years of failed promises

In an interview with City AM, Jowsey acknowledged that the current situation has been a result of what he damned as decades of inactivity. He said: “Every party over the last 20 years has promised to reform business rates, and none of them have done it.”

He implored the current Government to act, stating: “This government has said they are going to do it over the next couple of years, but they need to deliver on that promise. If they continue to tax business rates in the way that they do then they won’t just kill off pubs, they’ll kill off the high street as well.”

The call comes after years of false hope that dramatic business rate reforms could buoy the ailing high street, especially when it came to hospitality ventures. They have been hit hard in recent years with spiralling bills and lower footfall spurred on by the cost of living crisis. 

They have also shouldered increased administrative and labour costs as a result of the NICS hike and are about to be burdened with more when national minimum wage changes come into effect in April 2026. 

This has been reflected in job losses and tanking confidence as businesses tighten their belts and hope to ride out the storm. Jowsey’s comments, however, suggest that many might not. 

Not enough support

The Autumn Budget delivered consternation among hospitality business owners. While some retail and hospitality businesses benefitted from a lower multiplier, many saw their rateable values increase, which means they won’t qualify for the lower rates.

Data from UK Hospitality suggested that even with a reduced multiplier and transitional relief, the average UK pub’s business rates will still rise by around 15% this year.

This resulted in an immediate backlash, including a wave of pubs actually banning Labour MPs from their premises. By December, more than 250 pubs, restaurants, and hotels had already joined the movement.

“Drop in the ocean”

In January, there was some good news with the announcement of a support package for pubs. The Treasury announced that “pubs will get a 15% cut to new business rates bills from April, followed by a two-year real-terms freeze, as well as a review into the method used to value them for business rates.” 

While welcomed, the move left other hospitality businesses without relief. Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, commented that “the rising cost of doing business and business rates increases is a hospitality-wide problem that needs a hospitality-wide solution”. 

Michael Kill, Chief Executive of the Night Time Industries Association, went further, telling The Guardian that the support package offered by the government is “little more than a drop in the ocean when set against the reality of the current tax system and the cumulative damage inflicted by the last two budgets.”

More recently, Labour MPs have called for a pause on business rate hikes for music venues, so there may be more support up ahead.

Few believe these will do more than scratch the surface, however. Jowsey argues that even before the current Labour government, high street businesses were being stung by a business rates model that was not fit for purpose. 

His dire prediction is that if there is a wholesale rethinking, no number of reforms will solve the issue and hospitality businesses won’t be the only ones closing their doors for the last time. 

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Planet of the Grapes founder Matt Harris has over 25 years of experience in hospitality. Read his bi-monthly column for Startups now.

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