Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support

Debate between Charlie Maynard and Mike Wood

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Maynard]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Business rates feel so unjust—so arbitrary and out of control, and appeals are virtually impossible. We all beg the Minister to put doing something about that at the top of his list, because they are so grossly unfair and really rip the heart out of running a business.

We need to pick those problems apart and work out what can be done. As announced just an hour ago by our mighty Lib Dem leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), getting back inside the EU’s single market would help in a number of ways. Food costs would go down if we were back inside the single market, both in pubs and on supermarket shelves. That matters: it would allow food to be sold for less, making pubs more affordable and getting more people through the door. It would also help with recruitment, as we would not need to spend thousands and waste months on visas for key staff, many of whom are from outside the UK.

Being back inside the European single market for electricity would reduce energy bills, because we would be able to buy and sell electricity when the UK or the EU had surplus energy. I am not pretending that the move would solve everything, but those outcomes would materially help. However, there are plenty more problems that we would still need to deal with.

[Mike Wood]

Does the hon. Gentlemen recognise that if the level of alcohol duty is one of the big obstacles facing rural pubs, what we need to be able to do is widen the differential in the duty rates paid on beer sold on draught in pubs or licensed premises compared with bottles and cans drunk at home alone? That would be impossible if we rejoined the European Union. [Interruption.]

[Charlie Maynard]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) points out from a sedentary position, I am not suggesting that we rejoin the European Union.

Employer national insurance contributions are the single biggest nightmare. It is a tax before getting out of bed, before generating any revenue and before making any profit. It is a huge mistake by Labour, and a direct result of Labour Members straitjacketing themselves into foolish promises about not touching any of the big three taxes. It needs to be unwound.

Equally, we have strongly opposed the Government’s changes to employer NICs at every opportunity, and we have called on them to reverse the tax rise in full. We are also calling for a consultation on a new NICs band of £5,000 to £9,100, with a lower rate to better support part-time workers, on whom the hospitality industry heavily relies. I have already covered business rates, so I will not go into them further.

On energy costs, the crisis in Iran has obviously made many costs, not least fuel prices, worse rather than better in the last few months. That is causing enormous pain. We would remove the main renewables levy from household energy bills, putting £270 back into people’s pockets over 18 months. That would be funded by a new windfall tax on big commercial banks, targeting the windfall interest payments they receive from the quantitative easing-related reserves they hold at the Bank of England.