Reeves’ pubs U-turn: how business rates sparked a revolt, and why ministers are now under fire

15 January 2026

Paul Francis

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Rachel Reeves is preparing a U-turn on business rates for pubs after an unusually public backlash from landlords, trade bodies, and even some Labour MPs. In recent days, pubs across the country have reportedly refused service to, or outright barred, Labour MPs in protest, turning a technical tax change into a political flashpoint about competence, consultation, and whether the government understood its own numbers.

Two pints of frothy beer on a wooden ledge, reflecting on a window. Warm, dim lighting creates a cozy atmosphere.

The row centres on business rates, the property-based tax paid on most non-domestic premises. For pubs, it is often one of the highest fixed costs after staffing and energy. And while the government has argued its reforms were meant to make the system fairer for high street businesses, many publicans say the real world impact is the opposite: higher bills arriving at the same time as wage costs and other overheads are already rising.

What changed and why pubs reacted so fiercely

The immediate trigger was the November Budget package, which set out changes tied to the 2026 business rates revaluation and the planned move away from pandemic era relief. As the details landed, hospitality groups warned that many pubs would be hit by sharp rises because their rateable values, the Valuation Office Agency’s estimate of a property’s annual rental value, had increased significantly at revaluation.

A Reuters report published on 8 January 2026 described the government preparing measures to “soften the impact” of the planned hike after industry warnings that closures would follow. It also noted trade body concerns about elevated rateable values and warned that thousands of smaller pubs could face a bill for the first time.

The anger quickly became visible. ITV News reported on pub owners in Dorset who began banning Labour MPs after the Budget, with the campaign spreading as other pubs joined in. LabourList also reported that more than 1,000 pubs had banned Labour MPs from their premises in protest. Sky News similarly reported that pubs had been banning Labour MPs over the rises due to begin in April.

How business rates are actually calculated, with pub-friendly examples

Business rates can sound opaque, but the calculation is straightforward in principle:

Business rates bill = Rateable value x Multiplier, minus any reliefs

Where it became combustible for pubs is that multiple moving parts changed at once: revaluation shifted rateable values, multipliers were adjusted for different sectors, and pandemic era relief was being reduced or removed.

The government’s own Budget factsheet includes worked examples that show why bills can jump even when headline multipliers look lower.

Example 1: a pub whose rateable value rises modestly: In 2025/26, a pub with a £30,000 rateable value used a multiplier of 49.9p and then deducted 40% retail, hospitality and leisure relief. The factsheet sets out the steps: £30,000 x 0.499 = £14,970, then 40% relief reduces that to a final bill of £8,982. After revaluation, the rateable value rises to £39,000. The pub qualifies for a lower small business multiplier of 38.2p, so before reliefs: £39,000 x 0.382 = £14,898. Transitional support caps the increase, resulting in a final bill of £10,329.

Even here, the bill rises. The cap stops it from rising as sharply as it otherwise would, but it still climbs.

Example 2: a pub whose rateable value more than doubles: In the most politically explosive scenario, the factsheet describes a pub whose rateable value rises from £50,000 to £110,000 at revaluation. In 2025/26, the bill is calculated as £50,000 x 0.499 = £24,950, then reduced by 40% relief to £14,970. In 2026/27, before any relief, the bill would be £110,000 x 0.43 = £47,300. Transitional support then caps the increase, producing a final bill of £19,461.

That is still a meaningful jump in a single year, even with protections. For pubs operating on thin margins, that scale of increase can mean the difference between staying open and closing.

This is why so many publicans argue that the political messaging did not match the lived reality. They were told reforms would support the high street, then saw calculations that delivered higher costs.

What Reeves is now doing to correct it

The government has not published the full final package yet, but multiple reports describe a targeted climbdown.

Reuters reported that a support package would be outlined in the coming days and that it would include measures addressing business rates, alongside licensing and deregulation. LabourList reported that Treasury officials were expected to reduce the percentage of a pub’s rateable value used to calculate business rates and introduce a transitional relief fund. The Independent reported ministers briefing that Reeves was expected to extend some form of relief rather than scrap support entirely from April, after pressure from Labour MPs and the sector.

In practical terms, “softening” the rise can be done in a few ways:

Increasing or extending pub-specific relief so bills do not jump as sharply in April 2026
Adjusting the multiplier applied to pubs within the retail, hospitality and leisure category
Strengthening transitional relief so the cap on year to year increases is tighter
Supplementary measures like licensing changes, to reduce other cost pressures

The direction of travel is clear: the Treasury is trying to stop the revaluation shock from landing all at once on pubs.

The critics’ argument: ministers did not do their homework

The most damaging strand of this story is not the U turn itself, but the allegation that ministers did not understand the impact at the point of announcement.

Sky News has reported internal disquiet about the business rates increase, reflecting wider unease about the political cost of the policy. ITV has also reported pub owners arguing that the “devil is in the detail,” a polite way of saying the announcement did not match the numbers that followed.

Most seriously, reporting summarised from The Times states that Business Secretary Peter Kyle acknowledged ministers did not have key details about the revaluation’s effects on hospitality at the time of the November Budget, and that the property specific revaluations created an unexpected burden for some pubs.

That admission fuels the criticism that this was not simply a policy misfire, but a failure of preparation. The core accusation from critics is straightforward: if the government is reshaping a tax system built on property values, then the people in charge should have had a clear grasp of what the valuation changes would do to real businesses. If they did not, they were not doing the job properly.

Even if ministers argue the valuation process is independent, the political reality is that pubs heard one message, then saw another outcome. The result has been a crisis of trust that a late rescue package may soften, but not erase.

What this episode tells us about tax policy and trust

Pubs are not just businesses. They are community anchors and cultural institutions, which is why this backlash travelled so quickly from accountancy jargon to front-page politics.

Reeves’ U turn may yet prevent the worst outcomes for some pubs. But the episode has exposed a deeper vulnerability: when the government announces complex reforms without convincing evidence, it understands the knock on effects, and the backlash is not only economic. It becomes personal, symbolic, and politically contagious.

If the Treasury wants to draw a line under this, it will need to do more than patch the numbers. It will need to convince the public and the businesses affected that decisions are being made with full visibility of the consequences, not discovered after the revolt begins.

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The New Age of Digital Danger: Why Cybersecurity Fears Are Rising Across the UK

Paul Francis
Dec 3, 2025
5 min read

Cybercrime in the UK has entered a new phase. Once dominated by obvious phishing emails and fake phone calls, online fraud has evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem powered by artificial intelligence, deepfake video, cloned voices and social media adverts that look almost identical to legitimate campaigns. The result is a surge in public concern, with recent research showing that British consumers feel more vulnerable to digital threats today than at any point in the last decade.

A person wearing headphones works on a computer in a dark room. Code is displayed on two monitors, creating a focused mood.

A new survey by Mastercard reveals that nearly three quarters of UK respondents are now more worried about cybersecurity than they were two years ago. This growing anxiety reflects a shift in the digital environment, where fraudsters are no longer amateurs sending poorly written emails, but coordinated groups using commercial-grade technology and advertising platforms to target victims at unprecedented scale.

This article looks at why concerns are rising, who is being targeted, and how AI, fake adverts and social media platforms have become central to modern scams.

The Surge in Cybersecurity Fear

The 2025 Mastercard study paints a clear picture of a public increasingly anxious about online safety. According to their findings:

74 percent of UK respondents feel more concerned about cybersecurity today than two years ago.
More than half of Millennials and Gen Z have discussed cybersecurity with friends or family recently, suggesting a sharp rise in everyday awareness.
Many participants believe AI will make it harder to distinguish genuine online content from fraudulent material.

This rise in concern is not misplaced. Cybercriminals now use tools that can generate realistic imagery, video and audio at scale, helping scams spread faster and become more convincing. As the technology becomes cheaper and easier to use, the number of attacks grows.

AI and Deepfake Scams Enter the Mainstream

In the last 18 months, the UK has seen a wave of high profile cases that highlight how AI is transforming online crime.

The Arup Deepfake Fraud

In early 2025, engineering and design firm Arup suffered a loss of more than twenty million pounds after an employee was tricked by an AI-generated video call impersonating company leadership. The scammers used deepfake technology to mimic real executives, convincing staff to authorise a major transfer.

This case became a global warning that deepfake scams are no longer theoretical. They can deceive trained professionals inside major organisations.

Deepfake Celebrity Adverts

Fraudsters are now using AI-generated adverts featuring well known public figures to promote fake investment schemes. In the UK, Martin Lewis was again used without permission in a deepfake crypto scam. Dozens of people believed the video was genuine and lost money.

These adverts often appear on social platforms, where they look polished enough to pass as legitimate marketing campaigns.

Voice Cloning Scams

Surveys show that one in four UK consumers has now received a scam call that appears to use AI-generated or cloned voices. These calls often claim to be from banks, government bodies or service providers. The realism of synthetic voices makes them far more convincing than traditional scam calls.

These developments explain why public anxiety is rising. The threat has become harder to detect using traditional “trust your instincts” advice.

Why Millennials Are Becoming Prime Targets

Historically, older adults were considered the most vulnerable to online fraud. In 2025, the trend has shifted. Fraudsters increasingly target Millennials and younger adults because:

they spend more time on social platforms where scam adverts run
they trust online shopping and digital adverts more readily
they often respond quicker to promotional content
impersonation scams can exploit their familiarity with video-first platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat

Mastercard’s research also suggests that younger adults talk more frequently about cybersecurity because they feel more exposed to digital risk.

Social Media Platforms and Their Role in Scam Adverts

Few factors have alarmed cybersecurity experts more than recent revelations about Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

A 2025 Reuters investigation revealed:

Meta’s internal estimates suggested it earned around 10 percent of its 2024 revenue, roughly sixteen billion US dollars, from fraudulent or banned-goods adverts.
Users across Meta’s platforms were exposed to as many as 15 billion higher risk scam adverts every day, according to leaked documents.
Regulators in the United States are now calling for formal investigations into how these adverts spread so widely.

These findings do not mean Meta actively encourages scams, but they highlight a fundamental challenge: the more advert revenue a platform earns from fraudulent activity, the harder it becomes to eliminate it without impacting profit.

For UK consumers, this means a significant number of fraudulent adverts are being delivered directly through feeds and Stories on social apps that most people use daily.

The UK Landscape: Why the Fear Is Justified

Cybercrime in Britain has grown sharply in the past two years. The increase is fuelled by several converging trends:

AI tools that generate realistic human voices, faces and videos
cheap access to software designed to spoof legitimate websites
social platforms overloaded with unregulated third-party adverts
wider use of online shopping where ghost stores can appear overnight
criminals using mass automation to target thousands of people at once

UK regulators have issued repeated warnings about Christmas shopping scams, investment fraud, fake celebrity endorsements and misleading adverts. Consumers who believe they are digitally literate can still fall victim because the scams look almost identical to genuine content.

Why This Matters for Everyday Users

The rise of AI-enabled fraud directly affects British consumers in three ways:

1. Scams are more believable

A deepfake video, an AI-generated image, or a cloned voice gives scammers the power to impersonate anyone from a family member to a public figure.

2. Scams are more widespread

Automation lets scammers target thousands of people simultaneously across platforms, emails and messaging apps.

3. Scams are more profitable

With billions of adverts circulating on social media, fraudulent campaigns can run for days before being removed, generating significant revenue for criminals.

The average person may not even realise they have been targeted, because exposure is now part of normal online browsing.

The rapid rise of AI in everyday technology is reshaping the cybersecurity threat landscape in the UK. Deepfake video calls, fake celebrity adverts, ghost stores and voice cloning are no longer unusual. They are now part of the toolkit used by modern fraudsters.

The Mastercard survey shows that public anxiety is rising, and the evidence suggests that this concern is justified. If scammers can reach millions of users through adverts on major platforms, and if AI tools can replicate human behaviour with high accuracy, then consumers need stronger protections and better awareness.

The challenge ahead is significant. As AI continues to improve, the boundary between real and fake content will blur even further. What matters now is understanding the risk and building the skills, safeguards and regulations necessary to counter it.