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UK trade organisations have welcomed Jeremy Hunt's confirmation of a 12-month extension to business rates relief
By James Hanley on 22 Nov 2023
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
image © Richard Townshend
UK live music organisations have welcomed the extension to business rates relief for grassroots venues announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as part of his Autumn Statement.
Relief was extended from 50% to 75% from 1 April this year, and Hunt confirmed today that the scheme would run for a further 12 months.
Jon Collins, CEO of trade body LIVE, the voice of the UK’s live music and entertainment business, has spoken out in favour of the move, saying it is both “pivotal” for the grassroots circuit and addresses a “core ask” of the recently published LIVE Music Manifesto 2023.
“LIVE welcomes the extension of the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief scheme for another year in today’s Autumn Statement,” he says. The UK’s live music industry is an engine of growth, generating £5.2 billion in 2022 and employing over 228,000 people last year, with a gig held every four minutes. However, grassroots venues have been operating on a knife edge so it’s crucial that government continues to support this critical part of our sector with the right reliefs and funding mechanisms.
“The government is committed to supporting growth and innovation across the creative industries. The extension of business rates relief will be pivotal for those grassroots venues that are responsible for so much of the R&D in the live music sector.”
The Music Venue Trust (MVT), which works on behalf of over 900 venues across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, also backed the development.
“It was essential to keep this relief in place and we are pleased that our presentations to Treasury were listened to and acknowledged by this outcome”
“The potential cancellation of this relief presented the possibility of an additional £15 million in pre-profit taxation falling onto a grassroots sector suffering a severe crisis; over 100 venues have already closed in the last 12 months,” says MVT CEO Mark Davyd. “It was essential to keep this relief in place and we are pleased that our presentations to Treasury were listened to and acknowledged by this outcome.
“We hope that this further extension into 2025 for this relief will provide the necessary window of opportunity for the government to complete the full review of Business Rates on Grassroots Music Venues, which it committed to in January 2019.”
Davyd notes that the Chancellor’s statement also included the announcement of a significant uplift to minimum wage.
“The grassroots sector is notoriously undervalued and underpaid, from the artists performing through all levels of roles and staffing, up to and including the venue operators themselves,” he says. “In 2022, the average grassroots music venue operator paid themselves £20,400 per annum, delivering 66 hours of work per week at a rate of £6.43 per hour. An uplift to fees and wages across the sector is long overdue.
“We look forward to working with the Chancellor, HM Treasury and DCMS to identify the necessary funding which can deliver this statutory increase to minimum wage and extend the scope and scale of it so that everyone in the grassroots sector can be adequately rewarded for their work.”
Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) CEO John Rostron adds: “We support measures announced in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement that will help businesses in the broader grassroots music sector, such as the freeze on business rates.
”But, as far as independent festivals are concerned, what is urgently needed is the lowering of VAT to 5% on ticket sales. We will continue conversations with the government towards that end.”
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