Call for hospitality support in the Autumn Budget

By Jaq Bayles

Published: 29 August, 2025

Audit, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg has called on the government to provide financial support to the UK’s hospitality and retail sector to help businesses survive higher running costs.

Darsh Shah, a partner at the firm, said: “The UK’s hospitality and retail sector is struggling with higher running costs due to government policy. To help them survive, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, needs to ease their financial pressures in the Autumn Budget.”

He added: “The increase in employers National Insurance Contributions (NIC) has been a heavy burden for the sector to bear. Rachel Reeves could lower employer NIC to 10% temporarily to give retail and hospitality businesses some breathing room.”

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He also suggested the chancellor consider increasing the government-funded business rate relief of 40% available on each property to 60% for the rest of 2025/26. “Business rate is a tax paid on property businesses occupy. The cash cap limit of £110,000 per business needs to increase as well, at least by inflation.”

He added that Reeves could lower VAT to 12.5-15% in hospitality “so that prices are kept lower, which would boost demand and therefore increase their overall revenue”.

Darsh said: “The chancellor could increase pavement licences to all areas in the UK and ensure all local councils have the same system and requirements to grant these. Currently the system and requirements vary between constituencies which creates an extra administration burden for businesses who operate in multiple areas.”

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