Speaking on The Morning Advertiser’s Review of the Week, Allen Simpson, CEO of UKHospitality expressed frustration at the lack of communication from Government and warned the sector was likely to be disappointed.
He said it would be unwise to think the fight would be over and urged the sector to continue to push for greater change and reform.
“We’re still awaiting the details and it doesn’t look like the pub aspect of this is going to be enough, it looks partial,” he said.
The Government was purely focusing on the pub sector and ignoring the bigger problem: “There’s six out of seven jobs in the hospitality sector outside of the pub trade, and we do need a solution for everybody so it’s very hard to look at yesterday and feel positive.
Details vague
“The initial coverage was very vague, because we haven’t had any information, which was very odd - you’d think they’d want us to be out being positive and backing it. We were getting our info from phoning up journalists and asking ‘what have you been told’!
“The best piece of journalism was Politico, which had some information that it was going to be fiddling around with some of the valuation and reapplying some of the Covid relief, which is not going to be enough.”
He said the need to continue to campaign for future change would be vital in the weeks and months ahead: “I think it would be very unwise of everybody to accept this as this is what we get, we’ve got to carry on pushing because I think even people included in it are going to be disappointed by what they get.”