Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of regulatory costs on the pub sector.

The Government is committed to easing regulatory burdens for businesses like pubs in the UK, creating the space they need to grow, innovate and thrive. We work closely with the Hospitality Sector Council to improve the productivity and resilience of hospitality businesses by co-creating solutions to the issues impacting business performance.

This is why we launched the licensing taskforce last April, a joint effort between Government and Industry with aims to reduce the administrative burdens the UK licensing regime places on our highstreets. The Government invited views to help shape these reforms and the Call for evidence ran for 4 weeks and ended on the 6 November. This attracted a significant number of responses and work is now underway to analyse these.

Additionally, to help ease cost pressures on pubs, from April 2026, eligible retail, hospitality, and leisure properties with rateable values below £500,000 will benefit from permanently lower business rates multipliers and alcohol duty has been reduced on qualifying draught products which is approximately 60% of the alcoholic drinks sold in pubs.