Wetherspoon founder Sir Tim Martin says Scotland’s ‘discriminatory’ rates system is forcing up food and drink prices

“Consumers are likely to pay higher prices, which cannot be the intent of rating legislation” – Sir Tim Martin

JD Wetherspoon’s founder and chairman Sir Tim Martin has slammed Scotland’s rating system saying it discriminates against pub businesses like his.

Martin, who founded the business in the late 1970s with a single pub in Muswell Hill, London, building it up into an 800-plus chain, highlighted one of the group’s largest Scottish pubs located within Edinburgh’s Omni Centre, where the firm has been assessed at more than double the rate per square foot of the average of its competitors. He pointed to a “similar anomaly” in Livingston, where the group runs The NewYearField watering hole.

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Martin, who has been vocal on a range of matters including Brexit and Covid lockdowns, said: “As a result of applying valuation practice from another era, which assumed that pubs charged approximately the same prices, the raison d'être of the rating system - that rates are based on property values, not the tenant’s trade - has been undermined.

JD Wetherspoon, frequently called Spoons, runs some 800 pubs across the UK, including Dunfermline’s Guildhall & Linen Exchange within its Scottish portfolio. Picture: Scott ReidJD Wetherspoon, frequently called Spoons, runs some 800 pubs across the UK, including Dunfermline’s Guildhall & Linen Exchange within its Scottish portfolio. Picture: Scott Reid
JD Wetherspoon, frequently called Spoons, runs some 800 pubs across the UK, including Dunfermline’s Guildhall & Linen Exchange within its Scottish portfolio. Picture: Scott Reid

“Similar issues are evident in Galashiels, Arbroath, Anniesland - and, indeed, at most Wetherspoon pubs in Scotland. In effect, the application of the rating system in Scotland discriminates against businesses like Wetherspoon, which have lower prices, and encourages businesses to charge higher prices. As a result, consumers are likely to pay higher prices, which cannot be the intent of rating legislation.”

He added that a result of the approach taken in Scotland was that business rates for pubs were “de facto a sales tax, rather than a property tax”.

Scotland’s system of non-domestic rates has long been a bugbear of Scottish businesses, including retailers and hospitality operators. Earlier this year, the Scottish Retail Consortium raised concerns over annual rates seeing their biggest increase in more than 20 years. It followed the decision in the Scottish Government’s Budget to increase the business rate for firms occupying more than 20,000 medium-sized and larger commercial premises by 6.7 per cent in 2024-25, representing the biggest yearly increase in the business rate since 1999.

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Martin’s remarks came as the pub giant - often referred to as Spoons - posted a rebound in profits as rising demand offset a reduction in the group’s pub estate. Pre-tax profits jumped by 73.5 per cent to £73.9 million for the year to July 28, compared with the previous year.

This represented a further recovery in profit for the pub firm but remained below pre-pandemic levels. It came as revenues grew by 5.7 per cent to £2.04 billion, driven by a 7.6 per cent rise in like-for-like sales.

The improved rate of sales at its pubs was slightly offset by a decrease in its number of pub sites, after the group sold 18 pubs and terminated the lease on a further nine. It also opened two sites.

The group currently has 800 pubs but said it still has a long-term goal of expanding to 1,000 sites across the UK despite recently shrinking its portfolio.

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Richard Hunter, head of markets at investment platform Interactive Investor, said: “The pandemic hangover is something from which Wetherspoons has not fully recovered, but there are nonetheless increasing signs of progress.”

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