Government needs to get off the fence and give clarity to businesses

Sadly though, while it’s eyeing up the big prizes of US investment banks and tech giants, when it comes to the home-grown business of hospitality - an industry that raises a staggering amount of tax, the Government seems to be less excited or interested.

Confidence is key when it comes to business and the current leadership’s behaviour is not seeming to inspire a great deal of confidence, certainly for the pub sector.

We’ve got a budget on the horizon, a budget which the Labour leadership seem intent to portray as pessimistically as possible, running expectations down at every opportunity.

So far there’s been considerable talk of increasing costs - making employment more expensive with the recent Employment Rights Bill, and Sir Keir Starmer has recently refused to rule out increasing National Insurance costs for employers as well.

The mood music around the budget and general attitude to the pub and bar sector (the smoking ban suggestion anyone?) feels relentlessly negative at the moment and that is having a huge impact on confidence.

That combined with UK Hospitality highlighting data from HDI that sales are starting to soften, and the recent CGA report that drinks sales in the on-trade are in a year-on-year decline, are not giving a great deal of confidence either.

The Government needs to maybe step away from the global giants for a minute and show a bit of love to a sector that is a massive employer and a huge contributor to the UK domestic economy.

Business rates would be a simple win - a decision on whether they’re going to hold the relief in the medium term while they work on a longer term reform of rates would be a real shot in the arm to a sector which is currently facing a £2.66bn tax cliff edge.

As sector leaders are pointing out, that lack of clarity and the ongoing pessimism from Government is holding back investment across the pub and bar sector.

This budget will be a real opportunity to give some clarity and confidence to the sector that while the Government is pro-employee, it also recognises that it needs to come with pro-business measures that enables those companies to deliver those pro-employee objectives.

So, as the trade associations are all urging, if you’re running a pub or bar, write to your MP ahead of the budget, share your concerns and worries and hopefully that will amplify the lobbying and get the Government sights back on the domestic businesses that deliver to the economy day in, day out.