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As a food pub, we welcome a lot of families and children. We don’t promote a specific children’s menu but prefer to scale down adult portions to suit children. We’ve always taken this view, believing children should be encouraged to eat the same as adults, if possible, and there are always options that can be adapted and people are generally happy with this.
Oddly this type of approach doesn’t meet the criteria for the VAT cut.
Why?
Government guidelines say only children meals promoted as a specific child’s menu qualify for the cut, yet weirdly the guidelines also say: “Whether a meal is held out for sale only as a meal for a child will depend on how it is marketed, presented and priced rather than who consumes it.”
So an adult could order from the children’s menu and the VAT cut would still apply.
Extra work for little gain
But what about the people that order more then ask for an extra plate for the child so they can share some of their meal? There’s no VAT reduction in this case.
I wonder who this initiative is intended to help? Is it meant to help hospitality businesses or families?
From a hospitality viewpoint, the whole thing is so subjective and randomly excludes so many very good businesses doing their best to welcome all. It also seems to me that implementing it would be just a lot of extra work for very little gain.
For families struggling to meet the ever-rising cost of living, I’m not sure eating out in restaurants and pubs would be very high on their agenda.
The other thing about specific children’s menus is they are usually as low cost as the business can afford to make them, so it’s small change isn’t it? I can’t see such a small saving driving additional custom, which surely should be the purpose of any VAT cut.
Therefore, the minimal saving, if any, and assuming it’s being passed on by the business, is being given to people that can afford to eat out anyway?
Emotive item
Though any cut in VAT is welcome, this is so very futile.
It seems like the Government has cherry-picked a very emotive item (children’s meals) that will cost them the least in lost revenue while at the same time putting more pressure on struggling hospitality businesses to pass on that very insignificant saving.
It’s all puff.
Short of rebranding our whole menu as a children’s menu, these guidelines make no sense, a bit like the Scotch egg during Eat Out To Help Out being deemed a ‘substantial meal’.
I was also reading about the so called ‘nice pub tax’, whereby rural destination pubs might face higher rates bills because of their location and perceived trading potential. Anyone running a rural pub will tell you that a good summer and beer garden trade is what gets you through the quiet winter months – not something you should be penalised for.
Tom Kerridge’s petition to get VAT across hospitality businesses reduced to 10% is the sensible solution, it’s time the Government sat up and listened to the people who actually understand how this industry works.
