Nearly fifty Labour MPs have written to Chancellor Rachel Reeves calling for a forthcoming improve in enterprise charges for music venues to be halted.
The letter, which has been seen by the BBC, argues {that a} revaluation of enterprise charges, efficient from April, may improve music venues’ payments by between 45% and 275%.
Reeves has been warned that music venues within the UK are going through “an existential threat” from elevated prices.
Under strain from the hospitality trade and backbench Labour MPs, she has been engaged on a assist bundle for pubs, to be unveiled imminently.
Around 1,000 pubs had banned Labour politicians from their premises in protest on the prospect of elevated prices each from the revaluation and the withdrawal of Covid-era assist.
In her November Budget, the chancellor scaled again enterprise price reductions which were in drive because the pandemic from 75% to 40% – and introduced that there can be no low cost in any respect from April.
Many Labour MPs – in addition to opposition politicians – are involved that any assist bundle may exclude the broader hospitality sector equivalent to inns and reside music venues. They are urgent for a wider U-turn.
The letter was co-ordinated by Liverpool MP and Culture, Media and Sport Committee member Anneliese Midgeley, and consists of Labour MPs on the committee.
It states: “Many of us have been contacted by constituents in recent months who use and run these critical music spaces, explaining that they will be severely impacted by the 2026 business rates revaluation.”
It asks the chancellor to cancel the April improve till a brand new and fewer damaging methodology of valuing music venues may be devised.
It additionally requires extra assist for recording studios, claiming as many as half of them are beneath risk from the charges revaluation.
The Treasury has been approached for remark.
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