‘I’M SCEPTICAL GIVING UP DRINKING WILL MAKE PEOPLE HEALTHIER’ – SIR TIM MARTIN

THE founder of Wetherspoons has said the UK needs to become a more tax friendly environment for the pub trade, saying drinking nations had higher life expectancy than those which did not.

Speaking on GB News, Sir Tim Martin said: “I think that the pub industry, for a long time, has had a big tax disadvantage with supermarkets, and that’s caused the price of beer in pubs to go up much more than supermarkets.

“Unless there’s tax equality, unfortunately, I think that will continue. Since the year 2000, pubs have lost 50% of their beer trade to supermarkets. So it’s a long term trend.

“If the public want pubs to continue, they need tax equality. It’s a very dull concept but obviously, if you tax one type of industry a lot more, it’ll be less successful than in this case, supermarkets.

“The wages for Aldi are about 10% of their sales. In your typical local pub, they’re about 33%. So when you bung up the cost of wages, it affects something like a pub or a restaurant, much more.

“I think that the American companies that people instinctively dislike, but actually we recognise they’re very good, like McDonald’s, are very good at that sort of thing. They’ve got a very strong business model, and it’s certainly essential for pubs to thrive in the future.

“[They need] to have high levels of turnover, tempt people out of their homes, and find ways of keeping costs as low as possible without affecting customer service. It’s incredibly complex, but I think it can be done, we hope.

“I’m sceptical about the Generation Z stuff. The type of things they drink, cocktails and different types of spirits, and so on, we seem to be selling a lot of them and so I’m not so sure that they’ve given up on drinking.

“There’s a very strong health lobby now that says even one drink is bad for you. And I looked up the top ten longest living nations in the world recently, and they’re all boozers, and quite a lot of them booze more than we do.

“The Aussies and the Irish, for example, notorious guzzlers and they’re in the top 10 longest living nations and we’re not. And the nations which don’t drink don’t seem to live as long. There may well be other reasons as well, but I’m sceptical about giving up drinking will make everyone healthier.

“We won Brexit, you and me, Jacob. Other people have claimed that they’ve helped, but really it was us. We’ve not found a problem employing staff. There have been quite high levels of migrant workers, legal ones. But over 90% of our staff were born in the UK. I think the effects of [Brexit] have been exaggerated.

“I think the value of what my French teacher called ‘little jobs’ is underestimated. If you can get a start in the pub industry, which I did when I left school or similar types of jobs, it’s tremendously valuable and sets you on the right path in life, and you actually learn a tremendous amount as well.

“I think if unemployment goes up and people can’t get these sorts of jobs, it’s very bad for the economy, very bad for people.

“I’ve seen a lot about young people struggling to get jobs this summer, which is a shame, because in my experience, young people want to work hard.”