Speaking at UKHospitality’s (UKH) parliamentary conference in London on Tuesday 20 October, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper, Conservative acting shadow business secretary Julia Lopez and Labour MP and Minister for Future of Work Kate Dearden all championed hospitality’s importance to communities, employment and economic growth.
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However, Lopez warned busy venues did not necessarily mean financially healthy businesses, arguing the sector needed more than praise from politicians.
Reflecting on the impact of the pandemic on the sector, she said: “I now love to see people spilling out of pubs, I love to see cafes and restaurants full, it’s something that seems to me an act of defiance and an act of hope and life-affirming.
“But being busy doesn’t equal profitability and that is the fundamental challenge so many [businesses] are facing right now.”
Lopez added hospitality was central to thriving communities, both economically and socially.
“As a society, we cannot risk letting the hospitality sector decline,” she said, adding closures were felt particularly keenly when those social connections disappeared.
She said the industry was also a “gateway” to opportunities for young people, but asserted businesses needed to retain more of the money they generated.
Gigantic tax burden
“At the moment, they are shouldering a gigantic tax burden...the quickest and easiest way to stimulate employment is to cut those taxes,” the shadow business secretary continued.
Lopez further criticised the proposed tourist tax and pledged the Conservatives wanted to take “a large chunk” of the high street out of business rates altogether.
“It is not Government that creates growth, it is businesses and it is hospitality,” she added.
Cooper also called on the Government to recognise the sector’s wider role in sustaining high streets, describing it as an “entire eco-system”.
“A high street is the glue that knits our communities together, where we come together to buy and sell and experience life and mark rites of passage,” she said.
“I often say, in conversations about AI, when the robots take over there will only be two sectors that make life worth living. One is social care that gives people independence and dignity, and the other is hospitality, that gives us friendship, connections, good times and good memories.”
Cooper urged the Chancellor to introduce a VAT cut in the Budget, describing it as an “emergency brake” that could “really help” the sector. She also called for business rates reform to reduce the cost of doing business over the longer term.
“This is a sector that we need the Government to get behind,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dearden focused on hospitality’s role in opening doors for young people, drawing on her own experience of starting work in a café at 14 and later becoming its manager.
First step
She said the opportunities the sector had given her underlined the importance of ensuring others could access their first jobs and training.
“That experience has stayed with me, it showed the difference an opportunity can make,” she continued.
“Too many are struggling to find that first opportunity, to get a foot in the door and access the training and support they need to take that first step.”
Dearden further stressed hospitality businesses supported high streets, tourism and jobs, adding the Government was determined to remove barriers to investment and growth.
“Hospitality is one of the greatest strengths in our economy,” she said.
“Pubs, restaurants, cafes, hotels and music venues do far more than serve customers.”
The conference, hosted by UKH and Chris Webb, Labour MP for Blackpool and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Hospitality and Tourism, comes as the sector looks to next week’s Budget for measures that could support its future.
UKH chief executive Allen Simpson told attendees it had been a “difficult two years” for hospitality but that he had been reassured during discussions with the Prime Minister.
He said: “I do think he understands and values hospitality and the fact that if we want growth in every postcode, it really is only us that is going to provide it.”
