Thanks to this appalling Labour Government, the pub and hospitality sector faces severe uncertainty over its future. With the budget just around the corner, industry experts have been sounding the alarm and I fully believe that they are completely justified in doing so. Conservative Members of Parliament need to work alongside the sector in stopping this ‘nanny-state’ obsessed Government from running, once thriving, businesses into the ground.
Imagine a life, without your favourite pub, your favourite restaurant, or your favourite coffee shop, and then just think about all of the social benefits they give you. From encountering a quirky individual in a pub to catching up with a loved one over coffee, these businesses are essential in promoting a community spirit and improving people’s mental health.
These businesses are also economically crucial to UK PLC. They contribute £140bn in economic activity and £54bn in tax receipts to the Exchequer. Therefore, it is also clear that the success of UK PLC is intrinsically linked to success of the hospitality sector.
I am immensely proud of what the previous Government did in helping these often small and medium sized businesses. It was a Conservative Government that put their arm around them throughout the Covid19 Pandemic, it was a Conservative Government that froze alcohol duty to increase demand and it was a Conservative Government that reduced Business Rates to keep the doors open of the jewels in the British high-street crown.
However, we are now in a position that this Orwellian Labour Government, has led to many businesses wondering whether there is much point in carrying on serving our local communities.
I fully believe that this Labour Government is incapable of understanding the term ‘unintended consequences.’ The increase in Employers National Insurance contributions, for instance, is completely economically illiterate. The sector employs so many incredible people from all different backgrounds, but this decision will leave many with no choice but to not hire the next generation of workers. Now I know many Labour MPs have never worked within the ‘real world’, but this loss of job opportunities will severely damage the next generations work-ethic and their desire to succeed in life.
Not content there however, the Chancellor has given no clear sign to businesses that they will not face a cliff-edge when their Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Business Rate relief ends. For instance, the British Beer and Pubs Association have made representations with me that their members would see a quadrupling of their rate and put many more of them on the brink of closure. On average, the rate relief brought in by the previous Government saved pubs up and down the country around £12,000 over the course of the last year. The Government must carefully consider their options and make sure they support the industry.
Of course, I wouldn’t want to just single out the Chancellor for putting the final nails in the hospitality sector. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade and the Secretary of Health and Social Care, for instance, are also assisting her in achieving this Labour Government’s Cromwellian dystopian fantasies.
The Government’s reform to ‘so-called’ equality laws will make employers liable for staff being ‘offended by third parties’. This in effect will turn hospitality managers into ‘banter cops.’ The Secretary of State would like to see people up and down the country being ‘de-platformed’ by their local landlord. This will not only place greater strain on the landlord but as punters can’t have a laugh and a joke in private with friends will close one of the last bastions of free speech in UK culture.
We also have a Secretary of State for Health and Social Care ‘Nanny-stating’ his way into the lives of hospitality managers and punters alike. UKHospitality have been clear that proposals to ban smoking in outdoor hospitality settings will be deeply damaging for businesses. Whether you agree with the smoking ban inside venues or not, it did actually lead to the closure of 7,000 pubs in the UK. Therefore, I implore the Government, on behalf of the hospitality sector, to think again.
So, over the next five years, when you see closed hospitality businesses on your high street, please do remember that this Government who want to legislate and tax fun are to blame. Businesses need security and certainty to take the risks to employ people, to look to diversify and most importantly look to grow. Unfortunately, this dreadful Labour Government is offering neither. Let the reader be clear that I and my Conservative colleagues would never ever put the hospitality sector at risk.
Labour’s nanny-state policies will hammer the hospitality sector and see pubs close
