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

Less than a week 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. 

The Standard’s Business Correspondent Jonathan Prynn is here with the latest.

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