Last orders: Scotland's pubs face a tough political climate

The Original Rosslyn Inn, located on Main Street in the Midlothian town of Roslin, has served locals and visitors, drawn by the famous Roslin Chapel, for nearly 200 years.

Always a family-run business throughout its centuries of operation, the current custodians, the Harris family, have been managing this establishment for over 50 years. 

There is a Burns poem on the wall which marks his visit to the village to see the chapel and his stay at the Rosslyn Inn’s first site in 1786, which is further down the road. 

During that visit, Burns said: “They say a poet finds inspiration in the grand and the glorious, but I tell ye the truest verse is born in the simple kindness of folk, I found both here in Roslin.” 

So moved by the generosity of the landlady, who he described as an “honest wife wi a heart as generous as her table offered warmth, laughter, and a plate fit for kings”, he penned a verse in her honour. 

The poem, At Roslin Inn, reads: “My blessings on ye, honest wife, I ne’er was here before; Ye’ve wealth o’ gear for spoon and knife Heart could not wish for more.  

“Heav’n keep you clear o’ sturt and strife, Till far ayont fourscore, And by the Lord o’ death and life, I’ll ne’er gae by your door.” 

The poem is a testament to Scottish hospitality, but 240 years from that visit, the family which now runs the business is warning that it has never felt such financial strain on the industry. 

There are a multitude of pressures facing the sector, Richard Harris tells Holyrood, and the period since the pandemic began has been the toughest his family has endured.  

Next month he and many other pub owners will pay their final instalment from the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, which was introduced to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic. “That’ll be one less thing off the mind,” Harris says.  

However, he adds: “The situation is pretty horrible. We’re a third-generation business, thankfully – because we’re owners/operators, we don’t have a landlord picking up the phone telling us our rent has doubled. 

“The margins have been so eroded that, at the moment, you just feel like you’re a glorified tax collector, and you have the laziest business partner, which is the government who is contributing very little to the viability of the trade, while you continue to fight on regardless.” 

And it’s not just financial pressure for Harris, “it’s reputation, it’s family”. “There’s that pressure of being the generation that messes it up.” 

You can feel that worry from Harris. He’s by no means in a position where he is about to close his business, and he says he is lucky that the rooms they let upstairs help with the business turnover. But many of the licensed traders have felt the pinch so badly that they have had to sell up or close completely.  

According to the British Guild of Beer Writers, one pub per week closed permanently in Scotland during 2025, and one in 16 Scottish pubs closed in the last five years. This works out as a 50 per cent higher closure rate than in England and Wales.  

Reacting to these figures, the Scottish Beer and Pubs Association said the sector faces “grave challenges” in the face of declining numbers. It’s a worrying outlook for an industry that contributes £2.3bn to the Scottish economy and sustains around 65,000 jobs in nearly 4,400 pubs and over 150 brewers.  
Colin Wilkinson, the chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA), an organisation which has served as a voice for over 30,000 personal license-holders, paints a worrying picture of the state of Scotland’s hospitality sector. 

“We are hearing people saying that Covid was better, because at least then you had some government support, especially for your staff, as well as your business.  

“Now it feels like everything is happening at once. I’ve been involved with the licensed trade for 45 years; we’ve gone through wars, bank crashes, all sorts of instability, and I have never known anything like this.” 

Wilkinson explains that coming out of the pandemic, “there was a bit of optimism” in the industry, but there “has been a steady increase in pressures” in the years since then. 

He names a number of issues that are putting the squeeze on businesses: the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, the increase in rateable values, food inflation being higher than the overall rate of inflation, and soaring energy prices, which are uncapped for commercial properties, caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Iran war.  

Every six months, the SLTA publishes a survey of the industry. Its most recent findings from January found that 73 per cent of outlets reported a year-on-year decline in profitability. And 72 per cent of retailers expect trading stability or a slight decline in 2026. Worryingly, 14 per cent are planning or considering closure.   

Wilkinson tells Holyrood that the industry has seen some of Scotland’s best-known family-run venues fall into financial issues. “I was quite shocked a year ago when the George Hotel in Inveraray was sold because it fell into financial difficulties – that was a seventh-generation business.  

“It’s not just people who have come into the trade and haven’t made it work; we are seeing long-established businesses that just can’t make it work any more, and that’s a real shame.” 

Katie Long, who runs Brown and Blacks in Scone, Perthshire, has been a prominent voice on the pressures facing pub owners over the last year. Following on from the success of her previous business in Perth during the UK Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, Long had the funds to renovate a derelict building in Scone, where she now operates. 

However, with a multitude of financial pressures, she is concerned about the future of her business. One of her biggest concerns is the increase in business rates, which came into effect in April. “My rates have gone up quite a lot – from £19,000 to £53,000,” she says. 

She describes them as “a grey area”, explaining how the business rates are applied differently to businesses that make similar profits, telling Holyrood she knows of a business in the same town that does a larger turnover to her but is paying almost £20,000 less in rates.  

Although she is thankful that the 40 per cent rate relief has been extended from businesses paying £51,000 to £100,000, she is critical of the way in which the amount a business pays is decided upon.   

Currently, in Scotland there are 14 national assessors who judge how much a business pays in rates. It is mainly decided by a formula comprising the rateable value of the property – based on its estimated market rent – which is multiplied by a tax rate called the “poundage”, which is set annually by the Scottish Government. The poundage can vary depending on the value band of the property (with higher-value properties paying higher rates), and schemes such as the Small Business Bonus or sector-specific reliefs can significantly cut what is actually paid. 

Long says: “I’ve paid rates for years; I’m not against paying the rates. My issue is why should I be paying more than someone in the town that is doing double the turnover that I do?” 

Harris tells Holyrood that his rates have risen to over £50,000 and his wife’s tearoom, which you can see across the road through the window of the pub, has gone up by 87 per cent. He questions whether there is much incentive to invest in a business if it could become valued at such a rate that it could threaten the viability. “If someone wants to get £500,000 in funding to improve their business, in turn making the place busier, it could create a rates bill that they can’t afford and they could lose their business. Are you seriously going to invest knowing that could happen?” 

He points to the recent revaluation of the popular bar in Glasgow, Wunderbar, a live music venue that employs 130 staff across two sites. It has reportedly seen its rates rise from £111,000 a year to £645,000. Its operations manager, Gavin Boyle, has said the only way to make cuts was to let staff go. 

It’s clear the industry is unhappy with the government. Over 86 per cent of retailers told the SLTA’s January industry survey that neither the Scottish nor the UK governments’ economic policies are aligned with business growth.  

In March, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay asked First Minister John Swinney to join him and Long for a pint to discuss the pressures facing the industry. Swinney declined the offer but said he accepted that some properties would see “some significant increases in rateable values at the 2026 revaluation”. 

However, he added that transitional relief funding the Scottish Government has put in place would mean “the gross bills of an estimated 60,000 properties will be lower in 2026-27 than they would otherwise have been”. 

Another major pressure that has impacted the licensed trade in recent years is soaring energy prices, which have been affected by global instability caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in Iran. According to the ONS, from 2021 to 2023, the cost of electricity rose by 90 per cent, while the price of gas tripled. And according to UKHospitality, energy costs went from representing 3.4 per cent of turnover to 11.4 per cent.  

Long says the UK Government needs to place a cap on the amount energy bills can rise by. She says 2023 was one of the hardest years of her life; her energy bills rose from £25,000 to around £100,000, and despite now being on a new contract, she is still feeling the ripple effect from those costs.  

“That was one of the darkest years of my life. It was criminal. When you’re under financial pressure like that, you can’t think of anything else. You go home to your children, and you’re not being the mum that you want to be because you’re too enthralled in your own financial pickle.” 

Both Harris and Long have raised the issue of the increase in employers’ contributions to National Insurance, which UKHospitality estimates costs the sector an extra £1bn per year UK-wide. And while they are shouldering this extra cost, since the pandemic, food inflation has risen by 37 per cent, according to UK Food and Drink – way ahead of overall inflation. 

These are just some of the higher costs. When taking into account all the direct costs associated with running a pub, based on the average cost of a 4.5 per cent ABV pint of lager, which is £5.01, pubs make just £0.12 profit when tax and other costs are deducted.  

It’s clear there is serious pressure on the industry – the rate of closures in the last five years demonstrates this. But for the communities the Original Rosslyn Inn and Black and Browns serve, losing them would be devastating.  

Long has just won The Telegraph’s “Save Our Pubs” competition – a campaign that highlights the pressure on the UK pub sector. Nominated by one of her locals, it awards £5,000 towards a bar tab for local customers. This is in recognition of the vital community work Long and her business have done since it’s been open, from raising money to keep the only local library open to hosting French lessons every Monday.  

Stuart Mack, who has lived in Roslin for the last few years, talks about the importance the Harris’ business has had for him and his family since moving to the area. “It’s unbelievable what they do for Roslin, they are an absolute asset. They put on so many events for the kids: Christmas lunches, haunted houses at Halloween, it gives you somewhere to take your kids and see your friends,” he says.  

With a new housing development nearing completion, Harris is always thinking of new ideas to integrate people who have moved into the village. Last month he hosted a father-son golf tournament called the Roslin Masters, with the winner being awarded a green jacket similar to that of the Masters tournament in Augusta.  

Mack says if the pub were to close “it would be desperately sad”.

“It would be so upsetting. We wouldn’t have a place to meet with our friends, a place we can bring our kids. 

“Life is very busy and it’s so important to have a place like that, that has a great atmosphere, where the staff are fantastic, and where you can catch up with your friends.”