Burnham offers 20% cut in business rates for pubs, clubs and live music in England – UK politics live

Andy Burnham said it was time to support vanishing “cherished local spaces” with his business rates reduction.

The prime minister wrote on X:

I’m giving thousands of pubs, clubs and music venues a 20% cut in business rates.

I won’t stand by while these cherished local spaces disappear, replaced by boarded-up windows and ‘For Sale’ signs.

They’re the heart of our communities and it’s time we backed them.

Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog.

Andy Burnham will cut business rate bills for pubs, clubs and live music venues in England by 20% from next April.

It is the latest announcement from the new prime minister to support local high streets – his latest measure to tackle costs for working people and communities.

Burnham said the £100m package would be fully funded including through reviewing reliefs for businesses that do not make a positive contribution to communities, such as vape shops. He said:

For too long, governments have stood by while cherished venues have disappeared from our local high streets. So today I am changing that.

This government will back the businesses that people want to see in their communities. I said I would protect pubs and local high streets – the beating heart of our communities – and that’s what we will do.

The cut will benefit nearly 32,000 pubs, clubs and live music venues, according to the government, saving the typical pub an estimated £1,100 in the next financial year. The support will be targeted so that the very largest live music venues are not included.

Hospitality groups are expected to welcome the plan, which they have argued will create much-needed certainty for businesses that want to invest, grow and create jobs, at a time of growing financial pressures.

Other cost of living announcements this week – capping bus fares at £2 and cutting VAT on electricity bills – have prompted questions about how they will be paid for, with the new administration under pressure to set out the detail of its proposals more fully.

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In other developments:

• The new chancellor, John Healey, said the government would return to its commitment to overhaul the wider business rates system, including small business rates relief, at the budget.

• Ministers also plan to crack down on businesses that sell through online marketplaces but do not comply with their tax obligations, putting them at an unfair advantage over those that do, and is consulting on measures to make those marketplaces more responsible for this.

• Burnham announced that the government would cut VAT on electricity bills, reducing them by an average of £45 a year from October. This would be funded, officials said, by his decision to scrap the digital ID scheme.

• The prime minister also announced he would reduce the fare cap from £3 a journey to £2 next year, funded mainly by changing international climate donations into repayable loans.

• Burnham is immersed in a deepening political row after ordering a review of plans for the early release of thousands of killers, rapists and sex offenders from prison in September.

• Victims of crime have accused ministers of making “cheap jokes” about releasing prisoners early after Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood were caught on camera “ribbing” about the scheme.

• Scottish Labour’s rivals in Holyrood have slammed Anas Sarwar’s shock decision to resign as leader to sit in Andy Burnham’s new government, calling him a “chancer” and accusing him of lying to voters.

• The Conservatives have asked HMRC to investigate whether Nigel Farage should have paid tax on the £5m gift he received from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.