Wetherspoons warns on pint prices after Reeves’ Budget adds £60m in costs

His comments followed warnings from brewers and pub companies about the inflationary impact of the Budget, where alcohol duties increased in line with inflation, except for cask spirits, which received a 1.75 per cent cut.

Tim Dewey, managing director of Yorkshire brewer Timothy Taylor’s, said earlier this week that increases in NI contributions and the living wage would effectively wipe out any benefit pub patrons would receive from the military service cut.

He told The Telegraph: “There is no doubt that the cut to beer duty is really unrelated to the price pressure that (Ms Reeves) is putting on the pub industry.”

JD Wetherspoon saw a 5.9 per cent increase in like-for-like sales in the 14 weeks to November 3. Bar and food sales increased by 5.7 percent, while slot machine sales increased by 13.5 percent. But hotel room sales fell 2 percent.

Shares of the pub chain rose more than 2 percent as markets opened on Wednesday.

Sir Tim said the company was “confident of a reasonable result for the year” but warned it would be difficult to predict performance given rising costs following the Budget.

Bosses are furious at plans to increase NI contributions by 1.2 percentage points to 15 per cent from April next year, while also reducing the level at which they will start paying. The government said the changes were necessary to help plug an alleged £40bn “black hole” in the economy.

UKHospitality, which represents pubs, restaurants and cafes – an industry known for its reliance on young and part-time staff – has warned that tax bills could collectively rise by £1 billion due to the changes.