Push for VAT cut in UK on-trade

A selection of the UK’s leading pub and restaurant chains have joined forces to push for a reduction in VAT to help boost the prospects of the country’s hospitality industry.

The coalition of more than two dozen companies – which includes brewers such as Fuller’s, Young’s, Shepherd Neame and Timothy Taylor as well as pub chain JD Wetherspoon – are getting behind French hospitality entrepreneur and lobbyist Jacques Borel in his campaign to get VAT reduced from 20% to 5% on food, drink and accommodation in the UK.

Borel has previously successfully lobbied for the VAT cut in France, leading to the creation of thousands more jobs in the leisure industry.

In addition, the French government saw its tax revenues from the industry increase as more people were prepared to pay for food and drink in the on-trade.

Tim Martin, chairman of JD Wetherspoon, said: “In the UK, supermarkets have been able to subsidise their alcohol sales on the back of non-VAT food sales.

“We cannot do that in pubs because we have to pay VAT on food. It is like clean athletes having to take on drug cheats. The supermarkets have been given steroids by the government for the last two decades.”

Martin last week said that the tax burden placed on the company has forced it to rethink its expansion plans.