REG - Wetherspoon (JD) PLC - Wetherspoon and Business Rates Reform

J D WetherspoonAnnouncement

17/03/2026 14:00

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RNS Number : 0092X  Wetherspoon (JD) PLC  17 March 2026

J D WETHERSPOON PLC

 

17(th) March 2026

 

J D WETHERSPOON PLC

 

Let's Agree a Simple Message on Business Rates

By Tim Martin

 

Wetherspoon, Fuller's, St Austell, Shepherd Neame and many other family
brewers backed Jacques Borel's campaign for approximate VAT equality with
supermarkets a dozen or so years ago.

 

The failure of Jacques' campaign in the UK, in contrast to great success
elsewhere in the world, was testament to the irrationality and disunity of
most of the upper echelons of the UK's licensed trade in matters of taxation.

 

For reasons best known to themselves, probably connected to political
allegiance to the then government, Enterprise Inns, Greene King and trade
newspaper the Morning Advertiser poured scorn on Jacques' VAT campaign,
helping to ensure its failure.

 

Both Greene King and Enterprise Inns now have different, and more business
savvy, managements which, no doubt, see the error of their predecessors'
disastrous policies- both companies' pubs, in common with the rest of the pub
industry, have lost vast swathes of their beer trade to supermarkets in recent
years.

 

However, supporters of Jacques will have suffered a frisson of anxiety when
Greene King, on a frolic of their own, launched a campaign for business rates
reform last summer- to some of us, it didn't quite add up.

 

Greene King's main pitch was to base business rates on a pub's profit, rather
than on sales, or "fair maintainable trade", in the jargon of valuation
experts.

 

Wetherspoon sympathises with Greene King's desire to find a formula which
takes into account the vast reduction in pub profitability and sales in recent
decades, but we query their chosen methodology.

 

If rateable values were to be based on profits, rather than trade, the
existing knowledge and education of business rates experts, acting on behalf
of the government, but also for licensees, would need to be replaced by the
more complex and expensive expertise of the accountancy profession.

 

Traditionally, and at great expense, accountants are called upon when the
profits of businesses require close examination.

 

Greene King's advocacy of profit-based business rates is also at odds with the
principle of a property tax, which is based on the value of the property
itself, rather than on the circumstances of the tenant occupying the property.

 

Indeed, businesses already have a tax based on profits: corporation tax. A
second tax based on profits seems bureaucratic and illogical.

 

Rather than embarking on the complex path of a brand-new rating system, which
is bound to be expensive to implement, and which will involve many "unknown
unknowns", our suggestion is to keep it simple.

 

Currently, business rates are assessed on the fair maintainable trade of a
hypothetical tenant occupying the property in question, to which a
"multiplier" is applied.

 

The multiplier is currently 43 pence in the pound and many in the pub
industry, including Greene King, have campaigned for a reduction of 15 pence
to 28 pence.

 

Almost everyone, including probably the government, agrees that pubs are
overtaxed.

 

A reduction of the multiplier has the massive advantage of being easy to
understand, easy to implement, and thereby provides a bona fide cash benefit
to pubs.

 

This contrasts with the inherent uncertainty and delay in calling for a new
system of business rates- which would bring zero guarantee of genuinely lower
taxes for pubs, even if Greene King's formula were adopted.

 

In summary, Wetherspoon believes that the pub trade should get behind two tax
campaigns.

 

One is that pubs and supermarkets should be treated equally for the purposes
of VAT- and the other is that the business rates multiplier should be reduced
to 28 pence.

 

There we have it. Nirvana for the pub industry in one sentence.

 

Above all, we say, avoid excessive complication. In other words, keep it
simple, stupid…...

 

 

ENDS

 

 

Enquiries:

Nigel Connor                 Legal Director
              07818 232529

Eddie Gershon              Company
Spokesman              07956 392234

 

Please send any questions by email to investorqueries@jdwetherspoon.co.uk
(mailto:investorqueries@jdwetherspoon.co.uk)

Notes to editors

 

1.     J D Wetherspoon owns and operates pubs throughout the UK. The
Company aims to provide customers with good-quality food and drink, served by
well-trained and friendly staff, at reasonable prices. The pubs are
individually designed, and the Company aims to maintain them in excellent
condition.

 

2.     Visit our website:  www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk
(http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk)

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