Wetherspoons to slash food and drink prices by up to 28% this week due to mini-Budget VAT cut – with a pint for £1.29

WETHERSPOONS is set to slash food and drink prices by up to 28 per cent this week due to a VAT cut.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak last week announced in the mini-Budget that the VAT rate for the hospitality industry will drop from 20 per cent to 5 per cent from July 15.

It's hoped the temporary rate cut, which will remain until January 12, 2021, will help the struggling industry bounce back from the coronavirus crisis.

VAT is a tax paid by businesses on the items or services they sell and is typically passed on to consumers in the price they pay for these goods.

If passed on in full, it means savings of 12.5 per cent for households.

Wetherspoons says it will use the VAT cut savings to reduce prices on food items, coffee and soft drinks from this Wednesday, July 15, with prices set to fall by up to 28 per cent.

The VAT cut doesn't apply to booze, but Wetherspoons says it will reduce the price of some ales as a result.

The chain says all price reductions, which it will apply to real ale, coffee, soft drinks, breakfasts, burgers and pizzas, will be fully implemented by July 20.

It comes after Wetherspoons and other pub chains hiked drink prices when boozers reopened to customers earlier this month.

Thanks to the reduction, a pint of Ruddles bitter will cost £1.29, down 50p from £1.79.

While breakfasts will be reduced to £3.49, down by 41p from £3.90 on average.

Prices at Wetherspoons vary between locations, so it's worth double-checking its app before you head over.

The Sun has asked Wetherspoons which menu items aren't being reduced in price, and we'll update this article once we hear back.

Wetherspoons founder and chairman Tim Martin said: “Wetherspoons will invest all the proceeds of the VAT reduction in lower prices, spread across both bar and food products, with the biggest reductions on real ale.

“Wetherspoons has campaigned for tax equality between pubs, restaurants and supermarkets for many years.

“Supermarkets pay no VAT on food sales and pubs pay 20 per cent.

“These tax differences have helped supermarkets to subsidise their selling prices of beer, wine and spirits, enabling them to capture about half of pubs’ beer sales, for example, in the past 40 years.

“A VAT reduction will help pubs and restaurants reverse this trend – creating more jobs, helping high streets and eventually generating more tax income for the government."

When Wetherspoons reopened its pubs following lockdown, it'd temporarily axed chicken club and 12 food items from its menu.

The pub chain, which has 875 branches across the UK, reopened 750 locations in England on July 4.

Wetherspoons customers WILL be asked to hand over track and trace details every time they go to the pub.