What a Fifth Off Actually Buys
Chancellor John Healey confirmed last week that October 28 will be the date of his first Budget. Along with the date came an announcement the pub trade had been waiting for: business rates for pubs, social clubs, and live music venues will be cut by a fifth from April 2027. The government described it as a first step ahead of wider rate reforms to be set out at the Budget itself.
A fifth. That is a real number, in the right direction, and it is worth being clear about what it actually does before getting carried away.
What went up in the spring
Business rates are calculated on rateable value, the government's assessment of what premises could command in rent. The 2026 revaluation updated those values using April 2024 rental data, when rents across recovering high streets and food-led city centres had bounced back from their pandemic lows.
For pubs, rateable values rose by around 30 percent on average in the spring revaluation. The Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief scheme that had provided a buffer against large bills through the post-pandemic years ended on 31 March. What replaced it, a new lower multiplier structure, is more rational in design. It does not meaningfully offset a 30 percent upward shift in the underlying base.
A fifth off rates from April 2027 does not undo that 30 percent rise. A pub whose bill went up by 30 percent this spring gets a fifth knocked off that new, higher number next year. Better than nothing. Not a return to where the bill was before the revaluation.
What sits alongside the rates line
Business rates are one cost. They share the P&L with several others that have not been static.
Employer National Insurance rose in April 2025. The National Living Wage reached £12.71 this April. The 18-to-20 rate rose by 8.5 percent in the same month, a larger jump than most operators had planned around. Food inflation is forecast close to nine percent by year-end. Energy is where it is.
The rates relief lands on top of a cost structure that moved significantly upward in April this year and in April the year before. A fifth off one line is welcome. The other lines are not scheduled to respond.
We run pubs across Sussex: the Castle Inn, the Bull on the Green, the Berwick. The announcement is genuinely welcome at each of them. So is having a Budget date. October 28 gives operators something to plan against. The months between the spring revaluation and a confirmed Budget date have been months of running costs that moved in one direction without knowing what relief, if any, was coming.
What the framing implies
The government calling this a first step matters. It suggests they expect the conversation to continue on October 28 rather than close. The broader ask from the sector, the one UKHospitality and the BBPA have had on the desk of every government for years, covers more ground: VAT at ten percent rather than twenty, rates at a level that does not penalise a venue for sitting in a recovering city centre, employment costs that do not make every hire a calculation about whether the business can support it.
If October 28 is where the direction of travel gets confirmed, the sector will be watching closely. A first step implies a second.
The table that cannot wait until April
The rates relief does not arrive until April 2027. Between now and then, the bill is what it is.
Around 4pm on any evening between now and then, the shape of the night becomes clear at our sites. On the quiet midweeks, when the dining room is prepped and the rota is set but the bookings have not filled every table, venues list on Halfseat the seats they expect to lose. Food at half price. Drinks at full price. A real cut of the booking fee going directly to the venue.
October 28 is ten weeks away. April 2027 is nine months away. The empty seat on a Tuesday in September runs on its own timeline, and it is not waiting for either.
A fifth off from April is the right direction. The chair that stays cold tonight does not know that.