Dear Chancellor,

Please support the UK’s pubs and small brewers in the forthcoming budget

We are writing on behalf of the Campaign for Pubs, urging you to understand and help alleviate the very difficult situation facing the UK’s pubs, publicans and small brewers – thousands of which are small independent businesses with thousands more employees.

We implore you to reconsider your plan to impose two major cost shocks to our industry this April, in the form of a huge cut to business rates relief and a major hike in Employers National Insurance contributions, as laid out in your Budget in October last year.

Your announcement threw the entire sector into turmoil, with business owners everywhere fearing that these new extra costs could be the final straw for their own pub.