Burnham's £100m pub bailout, Brits ditch the Sunday roast, and why AI is killing human creativity

Andy Burnham has announced a 20% cut to business rates for pubs, clubs and music venues. The government claims £100m commitment will be funded by cracking down on businesses, like vape shops and tax-avoidant online sellers, which they say “do not make a positive contribution to local communities.” Morgan Schondelmeier, Head of Policy at the British Beer and Pub Association join us to discuss. 

Meanwhile the controversial former Chief Executive of Barclays, Jes Staley is giving evidence to Congress in Washington, over numerous intimate emails he exchanged with the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. We hear more from City Editor Simon Hunt on that, and why Brits are eating fewer Sunday roasts. 

Plus: Features Writer, Adam Bloodworth talks about why we need to stop letting AI do all our writing. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is a City AM Studios production.

SPEAKER_05 0:04

Hello and welcome back to Business as Usual with me, Martin Kimber. And me, Matt Kenyon. Coming up on the podcast today, Andy Burnham cuts business rates for pubs. But will it change the fate of our boozers?

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Former Barclays boss Jez Staley is questioned by Congress in Washington over his links to the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Plus, are we losing our human touch by leaving too much to AI? Andy Burnham has announced a 20% cut to business rates for pubs, clubs, and music venues. The government claims the £100 million commitment will be funded by cracking down on businesses like vape shops and tax-avoidant online sellers, which they say do not make a positive contribution to local communities. The measure comes as part of our new Prime Minister's pledge to give Brits breathing space on the cost of living, though this is the first policy to be aimed at business. Joining us now is Morgan Schondelmeyer, head of policy at the British Beer and Pub Association. Morgan, welcome to the studio.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

Inviting Louise Haig to your summer drinks has paid off, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

It certainly did. Yeah, it was great to have her come along and highlight just how important the pub is to the UK and confirm that uh we were probably on the right track with uh Andy Burnham's team.

SPEAKER_05 1:18

So we've seen uh this business rates cut. Um many would argue that this is a big leap forward, but maybe others in the industry would argue that given the cost of employing people, which has uh skyrocketed since uh Labour took power, I know that I think we had someone on recently who said that it now costs the same to employ four people as it used to to employ five. Obviously, that's very difficult when it comes to pubs. Where do you land on uh enthusiasm for this policy?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, this is a this is a great announcement, especially coming so early in Andy Burnham's leadership, and it is definitely something that will make a difference. Business rates is one of the biggest bills that you have to pay before you even pull the first pint. Umployment costs are absolutely up there with the next is one of the next biggest um costs. So we are working with the government to see how we can tackle that and make that more sustainable over time because we want to be able to continue employing people. Um it's unfortunate when pubs have to make difficult choices along those lines if it becomes too expensive to to hire someone. Um so we're we're absolutely looking at the overall cost of doing business. But to have this announcement so early on is really encouraging for the sector.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

I mean, you've still got the employers' national insurance contributions that they raised, the national living wage. I mean, you know, no prime minister is gonna cut the kind of minimum wage. I mean, that would be that would be uh political suicide. You've got alcohol duty changes and of course the highest energy costs in the developed world. I mean, how how do you see the government potentially moving on on fixing those sorts of issues?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I think you're right. I think one of the big things about employment is that uh once you've made those changes, it is very hard to go back on them. Um the next contribution one, we would absolutely still call for a revision of that policy because it just does, it's a jobs tax, it adds the cost of employment. Um, in terms of wages, it absolutely is one of those things, you know, pubs do and want to pay uh, you know, livable wages to their staff. But one of the things that we've seen is the equivocation of age rates. So the younger you are, they're now pulling that up to be kind of one standard rate for all people. And that would have a pretty damaging impact because uh 51% of the sector employed pubs are age 16 to 24. Um so any changes there is really impactful. Um in terms of energy, we're that that's a tricky one. I mean, pubs are one of many, many sectors that are having the same issue with energy costs, but pubs are energy-intensive businesses, they're often very um energy inefficient.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

It's a fact that gets lost a lot in the debate, right? I mean, my local landlord showed me his energy bill once and I know he fell off my chair, which wasn't just because I'd had five pints of fossil. So you gotta be really careful in those chairs. But they they are like huge heating bills in the winter, and like there's all there's all single glazing windows on them and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, it listed buildings as a big issue as well because they want to make improvements and they can't. Um so yeah, turning on a kitchen, running your cellars, keeping things cool, all of the dispense, all that is is really, really energy intensive. So unfortunately, what publicans are having to do is they're cutting out food. They're not opening, you know, on Mondays or unless they know people are gonna come in. Um so we really want to tackle that. It is gonna be quite a challenge, um, especially because we've not been included in the industrial strategy. So a lot of those improvements on electricity and and energy use are going towards other sectors and we risk being left behind.

SPEAKER_05 4:39

We're seeing quite a quick flurry of economic announcements from the new Burnham government. I suppose one of the things which has not been announced in any formal way, but it's definitely being talked up by some of the new PM's economic advisors, is a land value tax uh in some shape or form. Do you have a view on that and what it might or the impacts it might have for your for your sector?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

We're working with the government on wider business rates reform. Land value tax would be really difficult to assess. You know, there'll be winners and losers across the country. It's such a fundamental change that I I personally can't see it happening anytime soon. Um, but I may eat my words. But we're working on them to look at how pubs in particular are valued for business rates. Um, and we're hoping to come to a situation which is much more reflective of the actual market. Um, and that could have a a longer-term impact on lowering business rates bills without kind of reliefs and things like that.

SPEAKER_05 5:30

And I suppose for those sort of uninitiated in the weeds of of how the pubs at the moment are being assessed for taxation, what what do you see as the current unfairness points in the system? And what I suppose what changes would you like to see in in how those taxes are put put about?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

So the current way the pubs are valued is based on essentially a turnover model. Um, but the problem is is they don't make actual adjustments for real life trading conditions. Turnover has gone up in recent years, but that's because the cost of goods has gone up. You you automatically make more when you charge more, but they're having to charge more because the costs are going up. So it's this vicious cycle where business rates increase, you have to charge more, your turnover increases, therefore your business rates increase, and so on. So we're trying to look at something that is a more holistic view of business rates for pubs, which assesses kind of the overall business condition and not just turnover.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

The Treasury were thinking about bringing in what the Tories called the nice pubs tax, uh, where if you've got a river view or a particularly big car park or a children's play area, or you do food, or presumably you exist as a pub, then you pay this extra tax. Where are we on that? Is still is that still going ahead, do we think, or is it all very up in the air now that it's you know, all systems change at government level?

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, that's actually a bit of a misnomer, this nice pubs tax. That's how pubs have always been valued. Um so that wasn't a new announcement, it was um an interpretation of old guidance. Um the way that it's valued is it's this very maintainable turnover, it's very maintainable trade. So, like I said, it's based on turnover, but what they're meant to do is they're meant to take into account is the pub in a desirable area? Is it a nice pub? Is it a pub that is hard to maintain? And that's actually meant to be to go into a calculation which then spits out your rateable value. Um, whether or not they actually interpret it the way it's meant to, or they just take blanket turnover and then that's your your final answer is another story, and that's something that we're trying to tackle. But this nice pubs tax was it was a a bit of a misnomer misnomer, and it has kind of always been uh the way the pubs have been valued, but that's what we're looking to change.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

Just finally, has the weather done uh good things for uh the pub trade lately?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

The weather has been fantastic. I think people really underestimate how important the weather is to the pub trade. Um, it can make or break pubs, especially in rural areas, pubs with significant outdoor space. Um, and the World Cup as well has been a huge boost for pubs, even though we had some late kickoff times, it really does make a big difference.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

Do you want to endorse the the business as usual Friday night pub uh weather forecast that we do? Yeah. Uh it's going to be 28 degrees, but a bit overcast. So still worth booking your slot outside your outdoor pub of choice or probably the oyster shed.

SPEAKER_05 8:10

Well, I think we can all endorse that message. Morgan, thank you very much for coming on the programme. I'm sure we'll talk to you again soon.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

Now, there have been concerns for months that this could be quite a difficult summer for airlines with both the jet fuel crunch and the dodgy effects of the European Union's new entry-exit scheme. But EasyJet is facing another major problem. Stocks plummeted this week, and it has also taken a massive £200 million hit to its profit after it became clear that the airline's takeover deal could be thrown into chaos by the EU. Luckily, our markets minx, Simon Hunt, has been all over this story. Simon, very simple question for you. How worried should EasyJet be?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Well, um, happy flighting was the catchphrase of Moses Beacon, the character on the BBC show, Come Fly With Me, but it is not happy flight for. A, there's the whole uh jet fuel issue they've had, both, you know, there were fears about shortages, the prices have gone up massively. Also, at the same time, uh customers not booking as many flights, or at least booking them much later to the time because they're worried about the cost of flights, they're worried about flight cancellations. Um, and at the same time, the um agreed takeover um is now in doubt because uh the European Union is launching a review into the foreign ownership of airlines. And the the issue that is confronting them is EU rules dictate that um uh airlines cannot be wholly owned by uh foreign owners. Uh and uh so how do you square that circle of Apollo, an American company, uh having full ownership? So that there's going that there's going to have to be some kind of arrangement with uh other shareholders, and this probe could make it even harder if the outcome of it is that the uh rules get even stricter.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

We'll be keeping a close eye on that deal. Um, Simon, the controversial former chief executive of Barclays Jez Staley is giving evidence to Congress in Washington over numerous intimate emails he exchanged with the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. What do we know about that?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

At the moment we don't know an awful lot because uh, like several other people that have appeared before this hearing, this panel, it's a closed-door event, so there are no TV cameras there. It's not, you know, the recording of it isn't going to be published. Um but this relates to Epstein's quite close ties uh with Jezz Staley, um, not um necessarily while he was at Barclays, but in his former guise at uh as a senior member of uh JP Morgan. Um and this is a a long-running saga that has afflicted Staley because uh last year he was uh banned as a director by the FCA uh over his connections with Epstein. And that's because uh while at Barclays, he had a letter um sent to the FCA which claimed that he did not have a close relationship with Epstein. It later transpired that such was the the closeness of their relationship that Epstein uh that that uh Stadies had actually been named as one of the executors on his will. And I don't think you I don't think you names it if you don't really know the tangential part.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

It says that he's like godfather of his children.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, but he is one of a number of people that are that were you know named in the release of the Epstein files, uh including uh tying this up with our our previous discussion on uh EasyJet, the co-founder of Apollo, Leon Black, uh, who is planning to take over EasyJet. So every everyone's involved. No one can accuse us of not uh having sort of a string that ties these all together, these stories that we do.

SPEAKER_05 11:58

We should have the board on the back where we show our own working. One more thing, Simon, very simple question for you. Why are Brits ordering fewer Sunday roasts?

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Because it is too darn hot. So this is uh the new harder from uh Michelin Butlers, one of the uh UK's biggest pub companies that owns Toby Carvery. And the clue is in the name, they are a carvery, they basically only sell roasts, or roast is the main thing that they sell. And apparently, because of the heat wave, because of the sort of extreme temperatures that we saw um in sort of late June, early July, people are being turned off roasts. They're just not buying uh roasts, they're not going to Toby Carvery and ordering food because it they just think it's not the right thing to have in in extreme heat. So this threatens our very cultural identity as Brits.

SPEAKER_05 12:46

So they're not serving an alternative brunch menu with taramasilata, cold picky bits.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

I mean, I don't know about you. I've I've certainly I mean when the heat wave was on, I didn't think to myself, do you know what I could really do with? A roast.

SPEAKER_04 12:57

I've had two roasts over the heat wave. Yeah, but I haven't had one.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Just you. You're our truest patriot.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

There is a Stonegate pub near me that does unlimited roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings with your roasts. So I always get that. There you go. Sixteen pounds.

SPEAKER_05 13:11

I mean, can you? A few pounds. Oh my gosh. Simon, you've taken us through a whirlwind of city stories for which I'm so grateful. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

And finally, data released recently shows LinkedIn hosts the most AI-written slot of any social media platform. And terrifyingly, this trend appears to be seeping into the mainstream media now. Adam Bloodworth is City AM's features writer and has had enough with the AI-written slot being submitted to this very newspaper. And to uh air his views on this, we've invited him into the studio. Welcome, Adam. That's very kind of you, Martin.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Thank you very much for welcoming me.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

Adam, you have uh written something about uh all the AI slot we're being given to uh put in the paper.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah, I think what's interesting is it's not just calling it AI slot, but actually going, like, where is the line and kind of this insidious kind of creep of it, and how even our best writers the last couple of weeks have filed us stuff, and they're saying it's not AI. They're saying this isn't AI. We've just tidied this copy up by using an AI software, and I go, well, isn't that AI? And they go, no, no, no. I all it does is it makes a long sentence, it turns it into two, and it clarifies a point I was really struggling to make, um, but I haven't used AI to write it. And what does that do to the sort of creative quality of the piece then? Well, it means that the human is taken out of the piece, the human's no longer in the piece, it's extracting the human quality from the piece and turning it into a robot written piece. You know, a long sentence, if if it doesn't read very well, maybe you should just rewrite it, rather than turning to AI and asking it to turn it into two shorter sentences. Because that's called writing, that's called writing. Um, perfecting and precision tooling your work is your job. That's writing. So, what I'm interested in is the definition now of what people are calling AI versus what others are calling AI. And AI isn't just when you file a whole piece written by AI, AI is when you go, oh no, I haven't really used it. I've just used it to tidy up this sentence. I I say no tidying up of any sentences with AI at all. Everything needs to be 100% written. The only uh time you can use AI is to fact check.

SPEAKER_05 15:15

Adam, I'm always quite concerned about the, I mean the future for writing if it becomes one of those soft skills where people don't think it's necessary, don't feel like they have to learn it or study it very well because it can just be automated and AI'd outwards. Were you surprised and concerned to see that people who are professional writers are filing stuff they've not written?

SPEAKER_03 15:36

I was shocked, and uh honestly, a couple of them are my friends. Uh this I've I've really gone out on a whim with this, seriously. A couple of them are people I go for dinner with um who were doing this, and I'm really shocked, and I felt strong enough about it that I've put it out there in a piece and I've posted about it on LinkedIn today. I don't want to blame any individuals. I I think it's a bigger picture as ever. You know, clearly there's temptation, maybe people are overworked, it's very tempting, you know. Like I I understand the human draw to kind of, but do I, I think on another level, I'm the joy of writing, as I said in my piece. This is not the famously the most well paid. I think so.

SPEAKER_05 16:12

I think I think I I think you're I think you're being very sympathetic. I think I think there is quite like because I I mean when I write for the paper, I actually don't do it very often anymore, but when I write features of the paper, one of the really fun things about it is getting to write it and getting to insert your own voice into it and modulate your own voice.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

And write it very well, you do too, especially given your um BBC uh piece this week, which people must also check out.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

But I mean, yeah, I mean, I also I mean some I probably do try to write more opinionated pieces these days, but like stuff like opinion and stuff like travel writing and stuff like food writing. How can you possibly automate that? I think at risk of sounding at risk of sounding like I understand it. How can people think they could do that?

SPEAKER_03 16:48

I think I I they shouldn't, and they and it's inexcusable, and I think I have been a bit too sensitive on it. I guess I'm just keen to not you know make this a witch hunt, and I'm keen to be able to do it. Which is very, very noble, which is what I'm trying to understand. If you do ever want to do that though, we can call people out.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

But to broaden this out, you're getting a lot of companies coming under a lot of pressure to use more AI. If if this wasn't a newspaper, if this was like, you know, a kind of normal quotes workplace, we would all be under huge pressure to be using AI in every single way we can because it eliminates costs and it makes companies more profitable. You also see a lot of creative companies now, their shares coming under pressure because they're not automating enough, they're not bringing in AI enough, especially look at those big ad agencies, they're having a real nightmare at the moment. You know, and so actually, you know, uh there people are under a lot of pressure from market forces also to use AI, but actually, you know, when you're making a creative kind of product, you're saying the blood, sweat, and human tears that go into it are ultimately going to make perhaps a slightly imperfect but much better product.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

I'm just saying that we've got to have a line, and the line has to be fundamental, and we have the this creep, this insidious creep of I'm not using AI bar is so dangerous, and we're at day dot here, and if we and if we let it, it's gonna be an inch turns into a mile situation with this, and we're gonna all of a sudden be excusing it left, right, and centre, and we're gonna forget how to write, and these people are gonna make it is gonna become even more normal, and it's gonna become, by the way, even harder to write if you've already oh just rely on it once for a sentence construction or a paragraph.

SPEAKER_05 18:16

You undermine all your own skills.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

You undermine all your own skills, and your own skills it's gonna get even harder to write naturally if you start giving yourself the day off. We can't give us other stuff, and I think I just want to make it clear that it's you know, we're at ground zero and we need to cut it right now.

SPEAKER_05 18:30

Adam, continue to be a hardliner on this and we'll support you all the way. That's all we have time for.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

Yeah, Wittakum of AI.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

Please do, we'll we'll build statues to you for the future. Adam, thank you very much for joining us. We'll have you on again to talk about this again soon, I'm very sure. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

Well, that's just about all we have time for today. Thank you very much for listening to Business As Usual.

SPEAKER_05 18:50

Two weekend treats I'm gonna offer you, one of which is sign up to all our newsletters, both daily and weekly. The other one is, of course, if you haven't already, download our free app.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

And a third weekend treat from me uh with 15 categories to vote for. We need your help in narrowing down the winner of the Toast Awards. Please go to vote at www.cityamevents.co.uk forward slash toast-2026. I will be back in your podcast feeds next week at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, but you won't, Matt.

SPEAKER_05 19:17

I won't be. I'm gonna be in Ireland for the next week. So I will see you all in early August, and uh Simon Hunt will be in my place in the meantime. But I'll miss you all. I'll be listening along, and I'll see you all very soon.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

We will see you then, Matt. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_05 19:30

Goodbye.