SIBA issues open letter on Budget concerns

By Oliver Catchpole

Published: 04 December, 2025

The Society of Independent Brewers & Associates (SIBA) has sent an open letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, expressing its “deep concern” that the hospitality sector was facing a “crisis of survival” after the recent Budget.

It called for further support for pubs and hospitality, including increasing the business rates discount for pubs from 5p to 20p, noting that as a percentage of turnover the brewing and pub sector pays tax at four times the rate of what it called “online tech giants”.

This follows measures in the Budget to reduce the multiplier for many retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) businesses, which is used to calculate business rates from their rateable value – an estimate of the annual rent of a commercial property if it were on the open market.

Read more: Report: Signs of stabilisation in the restaurant market

The Chancellor has replaced the previous scheme of two multipliers (one for small businesses and one standard) with five different rates – three of which apply to RHL businesses. For all businesses with a rateable value below £500,000, the multiplier will fall.

However, while the multiplier for most businesses was reduced, increased valuations for businesses coming into force next April (on top of the end of a 40% Covid-era discount) mean that business rates will in fact rise for many RHL businesses.

According to trade body UK Hospitality, despite a government transition scheme that will give businesses discounts on rates over the next three years (to help them adjust), the average pub will see rates increase by 15% next year. By 2028/29, it said an average pub’s business rates will have increased by 76%.

In its open letter, SIBA reiterated this 76% figure, comparing it with an increase of only 16% for tech giants. Addressing the Chancellor, it said: “While we were disappointed that you didn’t take the opportunity in your Budget to lower duty on draught beer sold in pubs, the sector was initially heartened by your announcement of increased support on business rates and to make the hospitality relief permanent.

“However, once the revaluations are taken into account and the transitional relief unwinds, pubs will now typically pay 76% more in business rates whilst online tech giants only pay 16% more.”

As Harpers reported earlier this year, SIBA announced that 100 breweries had closed between January 2024 and January 2025, with that number continuing to fall in 2025.

At the time, SIBA CEO Andy Slee said: “What is desperately needed is a lower tax burden for pubs, lower direct taxes for brewers, and greater access for independent breweries to sell to pubs in their area.”

On its website, the government said that it was “spending £4.3 billion of taxpayer money on a support package. This includes protection for businesses who would otherwise have seen sharp increases in bills next year.

“Due to post-COVID recovery in market values, the increase in rateable values for the pubs sector will be 30%, which, combined with the loss of the temporary RHL relief, would lead to an increase in total bills paid by the sector of 45%. However, due to our interventions, the sector’s total bill will only increase by 4% next year”.

The open letter was signed by all 28 SIBA regional directors (and all 4 non-executive directors) in what SIBA called a show of solidarity from independent brewers.

The letter is printed below.

Dear Chancellor

As members of the Board of the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) we Represent around 700 independent breweries, operating at the heart of our communities across the UK. We are an integral part of the UK’s brewing and pub sector that as a whole supports one million jobs and pays £18 billion in taxes.

We take this unprecedented step of jointly writing to you to express our deep concern at the impact of last week’s business rates decisions on the hospitality sector. We would urge you to work in partnership with the devolved nations to look at what further immediate support can be provided to help the industry. Measures could include widening the business rates discount for pubs from 5 pence to 20 pence and delaying the revaluations.

As a sector, we were optimistic of your pledges to reform business rates to help address the iniquitous tax imbalance between traditional business and online tech giants. As a percentage of turnover we pay tax at four times that of those global businesses which has always struck us as deeply unfair.

While we were disappointed that you didn’t take the opportunity in your Budget to lower duty on draught beer sold in pubs, the sector were initially heartened by your announcement of increased support on business rates and to make the hospitality relief permanent.

However, once the revaluations are taken into account and the transitional relief unwinds, pubs will now typically pay 76% more in business rates whilst online tech giants only pay 16% more. The imbalance is widening still further. The promises made seem to be at odds with The reality that community pubs now face.With pub closures at a new high and having lost more than 100 breweries in the past year, the hospitality sector is in a fragile state. These changes to business rates could be the difference between closure and survival for businesses that operate as the beating heart of communities and bring people together when society needs it most.

We would be happy to host you at one of our independent breweries to discuss this further and explore options to maintain our brewing and pub sector.

Yours sincerely

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