Banks, who runs a number of businesses including the Abbey Inn, Byland and the General Tarleton in Ferrensby, both in North Yorkshire, shared a video on Instagram where he outlined how he has spent time campaigning and lobbying MPs but has found it “really frustrating and quite demoralising...I often feel we’re just not being heard.”
The chef and operator highlighted licensed premises closure figures from last year as well as the first quarter of 2026, which showed an average of 3.4 net closures a day.
Banks said: “It’s a crazy number so at what point [is] the Government going to step in and say ‘we can’t have all these businesses going under’?”
He went on to outline recent unemployment figures and the impact of higher employer national insurance contributions on businesses.
“If you put national insurance on employers to such a level, they are going to employ [fewer] people and businesses will close,” the chef said.
“It’s terrible young people aren’t able to get a job, that needs addressing. At what point will the Government stand up and look at this?”
Crisis point
He called for the rate of VAT to be lowered, bringing it into line with other European countries in order to help stem the closure rates.
Banks added: “We are at a crisis point here. You can’t have those number of closures, quarter after quarter and think we’re not at a crisis point.
“We’re at a point where we will not have a small independent hospitality sector any more, it’ll just be big chains. big corporates, it’s terrible.”
“If you couple that with everything else that’s going on, if you open a hospitality business in the UK, I wouldn’t recommend you do it, which is a really sad thing to say, but it’s probably the hardest playing field in the world.
“We have the highest commercial energy prices in the developed world. Imagine being at the bottom of that metric - that is something the Government should be absolutely embarrassed about.
“When you everything else on, you’re probably looking at 35p to 40p of every pound spent in the hospitality business goes straight to the Government, before you’ve paid anyone’s wages or bought any food or paid your overheads.
“Its just mad and unsustainable.”
Broken system
He also stated he had seen a menu from the restaurant in the House of Commons where the price of a rib-eye steak was cheaper than he could buy it for.
The Yorkshire operator warned hospitality, leisure and retail businesses were facing an acute financial and mental health crisis.
He urged operators to stand together and amplify pressure on the Government: “All I am hearing from is other hospitality operators who are really struggling and I want to send a message to all of you that we’ve got to stand together, it is really tough.
“I think there’s a mental health crisis going on at the same time in our industry because people are really, really struggling - they’ve got no money.
“We’re going to have to turn the noise up a bit. All I’m hearing is how much people are struggling and it’s deafening, that noise needs to be deafening on the Government right now and all the political parties.”
He added: “It’s not just hospitality, it’s leisure as well, it’s retail, we need to change the system quickly because the system is not working.”
