‘Tax break tart’: hospitality tipped to exploit summer VAT cut on children’s meals

Pubs and restaurants are likely to invent enterprising ruses to avail themselves of the tax break for customers under 18, which those in the trade had derided as a ‘laughable’ scheme. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Pubs and restaurants are likely to invent enterprising ruses to avail themselves of the tax break for customers under 18, which those in the trade had derided as a ‘laughable’ scheme. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images ‘Tax break tart’: hospitality tipped to exploit summer VAT cut on children’s meals As bosses ridicule the chancellor’s scheme, one venue is offering a £25 ‘kids’ menu of snails and anchovy butter toast Restaurants and pubs are expected to devise “enterprising” schemes to exploit a tax break on meals for under-18s, after one venue launched a menu for “kids” featuring wild burgundy snail salad and anchovy butter toast. Rachel Reeves last month announced a temporary cut in VAT on children’s meals from 20% to 5% between 25 June and 1 September, part of a “Great British summer savings scheme ” to support struggling venues and ease pressure on families. The chancellor highlighted the scheme during an appearance by video at last week’s UK Hospitality trade conference that met with a muted reception. Afterwards, leading figures in the sector added their voices to a chorus of ridicule for the “laughable” scheme, contrasting it with the £5bn in extra costs loaded on to pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants since Labour returned to power in 2024. Chris Jowsey, the chief executive of the 1,300-strong pubs chain Admiral Taverns, called the scheme a “joke”, adding that the resulting discount was “so small it’s embarrassing” and that it would not help pubs that do not serve food. He likened the VAT discount to the Covid restrictions affecting pubs, which at one stage effectively allowed venues to serve alcohol as long as it came with a scotch egg . “I suspect you’ll get some enterprising interpretations of children’s menus,” he said. View image in fullscreen Chris Jowsey of the Admiral Taverns pub group: ‘I suspect you’ll get some enterprising interpretations of children’s menus.’ Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer One restaurant in Kensington, an affluent area in west London, has already found a way to squeeze maximum value from the scheme. The Blue Stoops launched a £25 menu appealing to any “children” keen on wild Burgundy snails with bacon, anchovy butter toast and beef and oyster pie. The menu includes a dessert called The Tax Break Tart. “We’re not expecting queues of children demanding snails and anchovy toast, but it has started the right conversations in the pub about why VAT support for hospitality needs to go much further,” it said. A non-alcoholic beer is included, meaning the whole package qualifies for the summer reduction in VAT from 20% to 5%. Clement Ogbonnaya, who owns the Prince of Peckham pub in south London, described the summer VAT discount scheme as a “token gesture” that would do little to he