Metro, Monday 24 August 2026
The Treasury has launched an independent review into how business rates are calculated for pubs and hotels, with a view to reforming the system. Jerry Schurder, formerly of advisory firm Newmark UK, will lead the review into valuations and report back by March. A call for evidence from landlords, brewers and hoteliers is also being launched. It follows a 20 per cent cut to business rates from pubs, announced in April next year, which aims to ease pressure on pubs and music venues. Financial secretary James Murray said: "Last month we announced tax cuts for pubs. Today we're going further with a rethink of valuations, so that we can build a fairer system for the future."
Murray's own framing gives this away: "going further" implies a first step already delivering results, when the first step is a cut that has not yet taken effect and the second step is a review that will not report until March. Two announcements, a month apart, on the same underlying problem, neither of which has yet changed what a single pub actually pays.
A system can survive in this condition for a surprisingly long time. What it cannot do easily is correct itself.The Performance of Obedience, Ch. 14
This entry treats a second announcement, launched a month after the first, on the same unresolved problem, as an illustration of the manuscript's account of how institutions substitute the appearance of renewed action for a system that has not yet delivered the first round of relief it already announced.