High street pubs, hotels and shops face “catastrophic” hikes in business rate bills that will force widespread closures and job losses, the Government was warned today.

Two days after Rachel Reeves’s Budget speech, thousands of business owners in the retail and hospitality sector have learned their bills will rise by tens of thousands of pounds from April next year as a result of a “broken business rate system.”

The damage is being done by a combination of huge increases in rateable values, and the end of 40% relief for the sectors most harmed by the pandemic lockdowns.

It is being replaced by a 5% discount to the multiplier that calculates their bill, much less than business hoped for, that the Chancellor claimed would deliver “permanently lower rates.”

However, in reality, the c

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