Are Pubs Really in Trouble?
Reform are proposing a package of support for pubs — or possibly the whole hospitality sector. It’s not entirely clear. Robert Jenrick says one thing, Lee Anderson another.
But before we get into subsidies, it’s worth asking a basic question:
Are pubs actually in trouble?
A Sector Caught in a Bigger Economic Shift
The Government is trying to shift the UK from a low-wage, low-growth economy to a high-wage, high-growth one.
That’s not easy.
One way they’re doing it is by restricting access to low-paid labour — particularly migrant labour — to force businesses to invest, improve productivity, and raise wages.
In many sectors, that’s working:
- wages are rising faster than inflation
- business investment is increasing
But hospitality is different.
Pubs are labour-intensive. There’s only so much you can automate before you remove the thing people actually go for. Big chains can introduce ordering apps and strip out staff. Smaller pubs can’t.
Hotels face similar pressures, particularly in areas where they’ve relied heavily on lower-paid migrant labour.
Layer on top:
- rising wage costs
- the end of Covid-era business rates relief
- the 2026 business rates revaluation
…and you have a sector under real pressure.
The Long Decline of the Pub
But here’s the thing: none of this is new.
Pubs have been in long-term decline for decades.
- ~75,000 pubs in the UK in the 1970s
- ~40,000 today
That decline has been steady.
Yes, Reform and the Conservatives like to say “one pub closing every day since Labour came to power”.
But that’s actually slower than the long-term trend.
The real structural breaks came earlier:
- the 2007 smoking ban
- the rise of cheap supermarket alcohol
- changing social habits
Pubs adapted:
- better food
- family-friendly environments
- higher margins
But the fundamentals kept shifting. Even the more fashionable end of the market isn’t immune. BrewDog, once the poster child for a new, high-margin, urban pub model, has faced mounting financial pressure as expansion, rising costs and softer demand collide. The problems overwhelming BrewDog aren’t that different to the problems that sunk Jamie’s Italian 7 years ago. If even the growth brands are struggling, this isn’t just a story about failing boozers in declining towns — it’s a sector being squeezed from all sides.
Young People Just Don’t Drink Like They Used To
This is the real problem.
Younger generations behave differently:
- fewer young people drink at all
- those who do drink less frequently
- binge drinking has collapsed
- low/no alcohol alternatives are rising fast
Even among those who drink, behaviour has changed:
- fewer pints
- more variety (wine, cocktails, spirits)
- more alternative leisure activities
In short: the core pub model — sitting for hours drinking pints — is fading.
Some pubs still thrive. University areas, for example, remain strong.
But outside those pockets, the trend is clear.
A Tale of Two Pub Sectors
There’s another awkward truth here.
Not all pubs are struggling.
In big cities — London, Manchester, Leeds — the on-trade is often doing perfectly well. Busy venues, higher prices, more diverse offers: food, cocktails, events.
These are not dying businesses. They’re evolving. Thriving.
The problems are much more concentrated in smaller towns and post-industrial areas.
Places with:
- lower incomes
- less population growth
- fewer young people
- weaker local economies
In those places, pubs aren’t just businesses — they’re often one of the last remaining social spaces. And when they go, it feels like something bigger is disappearing.
But that points to a deeper issue.
These areas are already heavily subsidised — through public spending and redistribution from more productive parts of the economy.
So when politicians propose further subsidies to “save pubs”, what they’re often really doing is propping up local economies that are already struggling to sustain themselves.
That might be defensible. It might even be necessary.
But it’s not a growth strategy. We can’t keep on adding more and more subsidies to places in decline.
It’s a holding pattern.
You can subsidise the symptoms. But unless the underlying economy changes, the decline just slows — it doesn’t stop.
The Politics of Nostalgia
This is where Reform’s policy starts to look familiar.
It isn’t really about pubs.
It’s about a version of Britain that is disappearing:
- traditional industries
- traditional communities
- traditional ways of socialising
And instead of adapting to that change, the instinct is to freeze it in place.
Subsidise it. Protect it. Preserve it.
Even if the underlying demand is no longer there.
Conclusion
Pubs are under pressure. That much is true.
But the idea that this is a sudden crisis caused by recent government policy doesn’t stand up.
This is a long-term structural shift driven by:
- changing demographics
- changing behaviour
- changing economics
Some pubs will survive — and thrive — by adapting.
Others won’t.
And no amount of political nostalgia, or subsidy packages dressed up as economic policy, is going to change that.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8591
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78vqj99168o
I’ve tried twice to leave a comment, but no joy, this is the 3rd time.
Were you getting the “Nonce verification failed” error message?
Had that message before – Charming as it is. In WordPress the term stands for ‘Number used Once’
Is the “number used once” part of Aksimet or some other anti-spam measure?
How odd? Did you get an error message?
It seemed to go through, but didnt display, then I was getting duplicate post notification and the spam notifications, after trying more times it went in the wrong post somehow (could have been my fault).
The Peak of the pub trade was early 1900’s I think there was around 80,000, but with half the population we have now.
Of course things were different back then, beer was actually safer to drink than water, it was cheap, there was no TV or Radio so people got their entertainment and socialising from pubs.
Since then we’ve had radio and TV, cars to get to different places, bans on drink driving and now the internet and the stuff that provides plus the reasons you mentioned. They are all reasons to stay in.
However it doesn’t all make sense. Why has it reduced so much from the 90’s when I first started turning out? I reject the idea that cheap supermarket booze is to blame, booze from shops has always been cheap. Up until the 2000’s maybe even 2010’s you could buy 8 cans for fiver, but it never stopped people going out. The pint to can price ratio now is arguably worse than it was 90s-10’s
I think the cost of living is destroying local pubs more than the cost of a pint. 1995 I used to work away from home, when I returned I bought my first pint in my hometown of Seaham, it was in the Duke, and it cost me £1.45, or £3.01 in todays money. You can still get a pint £3 in Seaham – happy hours and such, and some places in Sunderland sell pints that low. Granted you can pay up to a 5er for a pint, but you don’t need to.
When people look at their income they are being forced to make choices, a night out is a luxury, and luxuries are the first on the chopping block when finances are tight. Increasing rents, mortgage rates, food and energy are eating the working class alive, combine with things you never used to have to pay for like mobiles, internet and streaming services. You also have more health conscious younger people who maybe still live with parents but are working and have a disposable income, but spend it elsewhere.
Its a real shame because despite alcohols drawbacks, its a stress relief, letting lose on the weekends is what I lived for, memories with mates we still talk about, but also meeting new people. My dad used to be a bus driver we drove through Durham a few weeks ago and for nostalgia sake he went one of his old bus route driving through the likes of Murton, Easington Lane and Shotton, he pointed out the places where there used to be pubs, pretty much every single location is now a house or shop.
Are there any specific policies you’d advocate to try to bring down the cost of living?
I remember only my dad used to work, working class job. It was a struggle but we just about got by. Then both parents started working as a single wage was unsustainable, but it did make us more comfortable. Now many working class and middle class people need 2 people working and despite that, living standards are still falling and if they keep falling we’ll be back to the point in time where a single working wage was not enough, except it will be 2 working wages are not enough. I remember as country we had better public services, a stronger armed forces, a functioning NHS, banks in every town, and so on. There is something fundamentally wrong when a government has to subsidise peoples wages with universal credit.
I’m not an expert, and maybe my approach is simplistic but maybe start taking a look at why the rich have gotten richer, and the rest of us poorer. Why do companies proclaim they have no money to improve things or pay wages, yet post record profits each year? Most of us have seen real term paycuts while money flows to shareholders and CEO’s – in the 70’s the median CEO to employee ratio pay was 20:1 now I think its something like 110:1
A bit of rant but I don’t think the government gets what it should in taxes. Corporations absolutely rinsing people, enshitification is rife everywhere – not just the digital space. Corporations using loopholes and complex schemes to avoid paying taxes. Rich people spitting their dummy out and threatening to leave for places like Dubai (hows that working out) because they argue they already pay more tax than the average person, so why should they pay more – they seem to believe that they should be able to set their own tax rates and forget the fact they got rich in the British system, and should contribute back to it.
Declining living standards was always part of the plan. Over the years the share of profits that went to labour declined, the share that went to capital increased. This has been a long term trend, with a lot of political leverage bought to make it happen. The decline of unions is part of that.
But 2 other things happened too. The credit crunch, and the subsequent programme of QE quietly shifted wealth from workers to non-workers, particularly capital rich non-workers.
Brexit was huge too. Before Brexit we were competing with Spain and Germany, outside the EU we are competing with Albania and Turkey. That means that our labour costs have to fall to remain competitive. Some of this could be done by devaluing the pound, but that only goes so far. Lots of cheap labour from abroad on less than the NMW. But long term Brexit means lower living standards.
The current Governments plans to raise living standards go hand in hand with moving closer to the EU on trade. That’s not a co-incidence
But why? Is it greed driven, ideological or just the capitalistic model being capitalistic?
I did some ‘back of a beer mat’ calculations with AI, so forgive me if this is all nonsense. I asked what the difference would be if pay increased with inflation since 2010 for FTSE 100 companies, rather than post the whole conversation heres the AI conclusion –
‘The evidence strongly supports your hypothesis. The stagnation of wages relative to inflation has created a £62.9 billion pool of money that has been diverted from workers’ pay packets. This money has instead flowed into corporate profits and shareholder returns.
Given the scale of profit increases seen across the FTSE 100—evident in the booming financials sector and the record-breaking years for the index itself—it is entirely plausible that if companies had increased their wage bills in line with inflation, they would still be posting very healthy, and in many cases, record profits. The only difference is that a far greater share of the revenue would have gone to the workforce, as it did in 2010, rather than being funnelled to shareholders and executives.
I hope this analysis provides the clarity you were looking for. It’s a fascinating and important question that gets to the very heart of how the gains from economic growth are distributed.’
Now bare in mind that £62.9bn is just for this year, it would be hundreds of billions since 2010 and it is only for the FTSE 100, the true figure is magnitudes larger.
I know the government collect from shares, but I don’t think its as high as income tax and national insurance. Then you have a kind of ‘virtuous cycle’ when money goes to lower classes they spend it, keeping local businesses afloat and generating VAT.
I think this is the main reason high streets are struggling, pubs are closing and councils can longer able to provide adequate services.
I also asked AI to take a punt at trying to calculate lost taxes across the entire workforce, which is obviously very hard to calculate – but for fun it reckoned it to be 3 trillion since 2010 – enough to have paid for the NHS for 15 years without any additional taxes.
I’m not really a fan of using AI for work like this, but this looks spot on!!