Dear Chancellor (and Secretaries of State for Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and for Business and Trade),

We are writing, publicans and pub staff, from across England and Wales to urge the UK Government to urgently halt the huge hike in business rates that the vast majority of pubs will see in April 2026.

These rises are devastating and completely unaffordable, coming at a time when pubs are struggling due to the serious cost-of-living crisis and overall levels of trade.

These increases threaten not only our livelihoods, but also local jobs, local breweries, and the economic and social fabric of our communities.

From promises made both in opposition and in Government, Ministers had been consistently giving the impression that the Government was going to deliver vital reform of the business rates system and a fairer system for pubs. Yet instead, we now face big rises in business rates bills at the same time that you have disappointingly decided to cut the much needed 40% relief.

As the people who actually run pubs, we are absolutely dismayed at this clear business rates betrayal.

At a time when we desperately needed support for pubs from the Government, you have not only delivered none, you’ve slashed the existing relief and imposed yet more cost hikes upon us, in the form of another rise in the minimum wage and an energy levy and an increase in alcohol duty from April 2026, which means suppliers will put prices up to us, yet again. Nearly 90,000 jobs have been lost in hospitality as a result of the massive hikes in wage bills caused by your decision to increase employers National Insurance and the Minimum Wage from April 2025.

Yet on top of providing no support, it has now emerged that the revaluation just announced puts rateable values up enormously.

The measly 5p reduction for hospitality will do very little, compared to such outrageous and unjustified rises in rateable value. To try to dress this up as ‘supporting pubs’ is frankly a slap in the face.

You have talked about transitional relief and given the impression that this will stop rises. This is simply not true.

If you had delivered a genuine cut in business rates for pubs and hospitality, it would not be needed. In addition, it is vitally important to point that the transitional relief is just that – temporary over just three years. The eyewatering rise in RVs mean that the levels of business rates you are now expecting pubs to pay in 2029 mean that most pubs in England and Wales will not be able to trade profitably from then on. Why would anyone continue to run a pub business, with the aim of getting it through this cost-of-living crisis, when you know that from April 2029 (and for very many, well before that) it will be impossible to make any kind of profit due to the grotesque level of business rates imposed on it?

The new valuations for pubs are utterly bizarre, deeply suspicious and so very clearly at odds with the reality of trading. We notice that convenience stores have been given lower RVs. That is positive for them, but they are trading at a far better and more consistent level than pubs. They were also allowed to trade throughout the pandemic, whereas pubs were forcibly closed, leading to significant debts which many publicans are still paying off.

We are deeply disappointed that, despite having promised genuine reform for business rates and a better system for pubs, the Government has retained the flawed Fair Maintainable Trade system, which consistently overvalues pubs and leaves our sector paying far more than our fair share of the national rates burden. FMT is not fit for purpose, as the ridiculous revaluation has exposed. It is a system cooked up by representatives of the larger pubcos and brewers as it allows them to charge higher rents. This needs to be changed – and in the meantime there needs to be a proper investigation into how this clearly dodgy system came about and who lobbied for it and why.

At a time when pubs are still struggling with rising costs – including increasing wages, prices, high energy bills and the end of existing reliefs – this wholly unjustified and outrageous revaluation is the final blow. If not stopped, it will destroy many pub businesses across England and Wales.

We therefore call on you to act urgently by:

1. Cancelling the April revaluation and retaining existing rateable values for 2026–27 (and either reinstating the much needed 40% relief or using transitional relief to keep bills at the same level as this year).
   
   
2. Commissioning an independent investigation into how these valuations were produced and the clearly flawed Fair Maintainable Trade system for pub valuations.
   
   
3. Delivering meaningful business rates reform from 2027–28, replacing the discredited Fair Maintainable Trade system.

Failure to act now will sound the death knell for many world-famous pubs. We urge you to listen to speak to and listen to publicans in your constituencies and intervene before irreparable damage is done.

Yours sincerely,