The pub won the tax argument, but not the room’s deepest diagnosis: Yes carried the vote by nearly three to two, while the floor’s most-respected No voice said, “It's not tax that's the problem.” The result was a decision to make off-licence drinking bear more of the load, but the debate suggested that many voters were really voting on whether pubs still deserve special treatment.
The strongest Yes case made the pub a civic institution rather than merely a retail outlet: “Pubs should be exempt from all tax” because they are a community resource. Another respected voice called them “a critical part of British culture”, while others pointed to rural pubs doubling as post offices, shops and meeting places; even some supporters disliked the measure, but saw it as necessary protection.
No voters talked past that cultural defence. One argued that pubs should survive by offering something broader, not by making home drinking dearer: “The pub has a future, but the alcohol-centric pub of the past does not.” Others wanted taxes cut everywhere, or targeted employer National Insurance instead, and objected that the proposal was simply “another tax on the working person”.
What held the Yes coalition together was less a settled view of taxation than a shared anxiety about the pub’s decline. Its arguments ranged from public-health logic to simpler taxes, from support for small rural venues to the blunt principle that “Taxation is a social tool as well as a revenue generator”; the No side countered with private equity, changing leisure habits and the fear of preserving an obsolete drinking culture.
The chamber backed a pub subsidy, but its most thoughtful argument warned that the pub crisis may not be a tax problem at all.
14 Opinions
Definitely reduce tax on booze sold in pubs, it may help the small rural pubs. But honestly, the days of pubs as they used to be, are numbered. Most of them have gone too far upmarket for the low paid workers.
I agree with decreasing taxes on pubs. I’d start with employer NICs. Everything is overtaxed so I voted no because I don’t want any taxes to go up.
Why increase one to help another!! If pubs aren't managing cut their costs. Cut tobacco tax as well then maybe buy from legal sources and make some money instead of it being shipped out from all the vape and barbershop!!
I do not think it should rise period. However If it rises in one area it should rise in them all. In Scotland we are charged an extrordinary amount to have a few sherberts but it has led to less drinking from my perspective. Companies do not stand for less profit though and the pricing has gotten out of control. No doubt an unexpected consequence again hurting the wee man.
But that's only part of the story. Pubs should be exempt from all tax, business and booze and staff. They are a community resource so they should be enturely tax-exempt.
Pubs these data are often do much more than just 'boozers'. Often on more rural areas they become places where post offices & corner shops for example are able to survive. They're also & always have been places where communities can meet and have events.
The answer is not to manipulate tax to preserve alcohol’s place at the centre of social life. Both our social and home lives are evolving, and that should be welcomed rather than resisted. Pubs should compete by offering something people value, not by making drinking at home artificially more expensive. Alcohol should be an option, not the organising principle of leisure.
The tax on alcohol should be cut from pubs n off licences. It's just another tax on the working person
Our goal should be to simplify and lower taxes, overcomplicated taxes make the whole process costly and creates loops for tax avoidance. Imagine the tax code on one page of paper rather than 23,500 pages we currently have.
Taxation is a social tool as well as a revenue generator.