Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill (Second sitting)

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Do any other witnesses have anything to add?

Kate Nicholls: Over the last five or six years, you cannot escape the closures due to covid and covid-related debt. That is the backdrop against which these businesses are trying to recover. You have not really had a break from covid to be able to build back resilience in the businesses. It is not just pubs; the broader hospitality sector is also facing the same challenges.

You have had high levels of covid debt, which was Government-issued, to be able to remain afloat during that period. You had two years where you were operating at or below break-even, and one in three of our businesses have no cash reserves because they have not had the ability to rebuild those cash reserves. The resilience in the independent sector in particular is just lacking. Couple that to the significantly increased tax burden—pre-profit taxes in particular—that has been borne over the last six to seven years by our sector; that further erodes the margin.

If we were going into covid in 2019, the tax burden overall was 32% of turnover. It is now 38% of turnover coming out of that. If you do it as a percentage of profit, 77% of our profits go back in one form or another of taxation. I know that taxation funds vital public services, but we are the highest-taxed sector of the economy overall. As a percentage of profit, nobody else pays as much tax as we do, and you cannot get away from that when you are looking at it.

Added to that, factors outside anybody’s control have driven closures over the last six to seven years: there have been 400% increases in energy bills on the back of the war in Ukraine and 20% food price inflation, which again is on the back of the war in Ukraine and tariffs that have come through. Those are significant additional costs that you are bearing in the business that go through to erode the margin and, at the same time, there has been a cost of living crisis, which means that you cannot pass that on to your customers.

You are caught between a rock and a hard place as an operator. The bigger operators just cut their investment fully; that is £7 billion not being invested in our high streets this year to cope with the cost pressures coming through. Those businesses will remain afloat, but the independents do not have that cushion to be able to manage the situation. They run out of road, in essence.

Steve Alton: To give one illustration, small pubs are still handling their covid debt. It can be up to £1,000 a month that these guys are still paying to pay that off, of which the Government debt is obviously a core part. When you are unprofitable, and you are still paying that out, you can imagine the quandary and why we are going to hit a tipping point pretty quickly. That will mean that we lose not only the taxation they generate but the repayment of that outstanding debt as well.

Sacha Lord: Apologies if this was said before I arrived, but my concern is that a pub is not just a place that serves a pint; it is the heart of the community. We know that 64% of people said that a pub is one of the main places that they congregate and that 86% said that when a pub closes, the community suffers. We are anticipating up to 9,000 closures next year with a double whammy in April of the national insurance increase and the business rate increase. I am more concerned about closures in quarter 1 next year than I was during covid.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

Q Thank you all for coming. I will aim my question at Mr Alton, but everyone can probably have a go. Mr Alton, you mentioned 15,000 potential closures, and Mr Lord just said 9,000 in Q1 next year. There was also a figure of, on average, 15 employees per pub. That brings us up to about a quarter of a million potential job losses, which will be across the board—not just full-time jobs, but part-time jobs, holiday jobs and starter jobs. It will have a huge impact. Has the sector, or have you, modelled where those are likely to fall, when they are likely to come and how they might be mitigated? Ultimately, what can be done to prevent those losses or to help those people move into other businesses across hospitality?

Steve Alton: Some of that is already happening. Some people are already trimming their staff numbers down anyway to try to get ahead of this, so they have some degree of resilience. The real frustration is the reverse of what you just said: we pride ourselves on being the place that takes people in. We have some amazing charities in our sector that bring in people who are facing homelessness. We have placed over 600 of those individuals into hospitality, put our arms around them and given them a platform. They have already progressed to phenomenal levels of achievement within our sector. That is what is at risk.

Equally, the part-timers are under scrutiny right now, because they are triggering a premium payment for the employer. Some of those individuals absolutely depend on that fixed-hours role, because it is the only thing that they can fit in versus their demands, whether childcare or others. It is heartbreaking to see some of those individuals already starting to lose hours and ultimately jobs, but that will come, in a way.

That is just direct employment; we have to think about the supply chain as well. When you are looking at the multipliers and the real impact, I ask you to consider that foundational economic place that pubs prop up. Where are all the tendrils that go out into the community—all those connected jobs, from the butchers to the cleaners, the window cleaners and everything in between, that are sometimes hidden? Every job lost in a pub will be connected to multiple jobs in that community that are dependent on the demand that that pub drives.

Again, the situation is deeply frustrating, because we know that the Government passionately want to get people back into work, and we are the answer to that. Right now, however, they are unfortunately limiting the potential of our sector to help with that issue.

Kate Nicholls: When you look at the job losses in our sector, it is very difficult to strip out and identify the difference between the business rate changes that we are talking about versus the changes in NI. Steve is absolutely right that, for somebody on the minimum wage or just above at 20 hours a week, the effective increase in the employer’s tax on those jobs is 75%. That is where you will see hours cut and jobs reduced as a result of that change. You cannot just dissociate the two. That is why it is very difficult to model this and answer your question specifically about where we will see business failures versus job losses. Clearly, we are looking at—

[The Chair]

Order. The Minister may have been just about to say this, but we have only five minutes left, at least two more Members wish to ask a question, and this is steering a little out of the scope of the specific contents of the Bill.

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[The Chair]

Order. We have eight minutes for six people, so only one question each.

[Harriet Cross]

Q My question is very brief, and is relevant to what Mr Lenon said about margins being tight. Is there a figure for the average margin that one of your schools would expect? How might that be affected by the changes to the business rate relief?

David Woodgate: The benchmark is 10% net surplus on gross fees. We had many schools drop down to 5% to break even, and they are now going into deficit in order to meet the quadruple whammy—if I can put it that way.

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

Q I want to go back to something that Simon said about special educational needs in independent schools, and how in some cases SEN can be met only by independent schools. Can you give further clarification on that?

I spent a long time working with special educational needs in the state sector at every key stage, in both specialised and mainstream state schools. There was not a single case that I saw that was not able to be dealt with in a state school in one way or another. With the further investment this Government are talking about, I think that will change again. I would like some clarity, because if there are such cases, they should be taken up with the local authorities and Members of Parliament—it should not be the case.

Simon Nathan: I am happy to follow up with the Committee on that, because I do not have the specific cases in front of me, but I can obviously go and find that information. I do not think it is an issue on a national scale, but there will be local areas where the independent school is filling the need that perhaps cannot be wholly fulfilled otherwise. I am not saying that the expertise is not there in the state sector; I am saying that the capacity might not always be there.

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[Jayne Kirkham]

Q This is just a point of clarification for me. It is probably really simple. On the larger rate, over £500,000, and the lower multiplier, one witness said that it could still apply to hospitality, retail and so on, so it could still be applied to big hotels and grassroots music venues even if they are over the level. Is that right?

Jim McMahon: At the moment, any property over £500,000 would be subject to the higher value. We are not looking at the moment at sectoral exemptions, but clearly we will take into account the evidence sessions and the discussions that will happen tomorrow. However, it would be fair to say that if you are a retailer with such a square footage that the value is over £500,000, you are likely to be a very big department store, a big out-of-town shed or a supermarket. The assumption in the system is that if you can afford to occupy and run a space of that size, there is room to pay additional business rates on that basis. In the end, it is about giving it to that ultimate use, which is the smaller retail, hospitality and leisure uses that are the backbone of many communities.

[Harriet Cross]

Q Going back to panel 7, we heard UKHospitality, the British Institute of Innkeeping and the night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester reflect on jobs and job losses due to changes. I appreciate that it is hard to establish at this stage whether those are because of national insurance or business rates, but either way business rates are a contributing factor. What analysis have the Government done as a background to the Bill to model the impact on jobs and job losses in the different sectors? What impact assessment has been done in relation to the different types of employment—full time, part time or seasonal? A lot of hospitality work helps people such as part-time working mothers because it comes at different times of day.

Jim McMahon: I think, within the scope of the Bill, which is very narrow, the impact is only a positive one. That is in the context of the temporary relief that was provided during the covid pandemic, which, being temporary, was coming to an end—the cliff edge was coming. There was absolutely no finance provided for it beyond the current year, so the question then is: what do Government do about it? We either grow even further the £22 billion funding gap that was here when we came into office—that is, we continue it—or we say that—

[Harriet Cross]

Ten minutes ago, you said that we have to look at those changes within the scope of all the other changes, so I think it is not unreasonable to look at it as a whole.

Jim McMahon: As in, the interventions that the Government are taking?

[Harriet Cross]

Yes.

Jim McMahon: In the scope of the Bill, this is the much-needed relief that retail, hospitality and leisure need. Every one of the witnesses who came to talk about the impact of it, within the scope of the Bill, were—

[Harriet Cross]

Q Was a job analysis done in the scope of the Bill?

Jim McMahon: Those witnesses were very positive about its impact. Lots of other changes will be coming through the system. We still have to do the revaluation. We still have, through the next fiscal programme, to talk about the rates. That type of analysis will be done at a later stage. To be clear, although there was a lot of context about the operating environment being challenging—there is only so much you can do within months of coming into office—on the small business rate issue and on retail, hospitality and leisure, every witness said that the Bill will play a part in supporting local businesses to be more sustainable in the future. The other issues are well outside of the scope of the Bill.

[Harriet Cross]

Q It could have a positive impact on jobs, but we do not know because we have not had an analysis.

Jim McMahon: If we are giving a tax relief to retail, hospitality and leisure for almost all community operators, convenience stores, pubs and other businesses, and we are doing the same for town centres, city centres and high streets, then the answer is self-evident: it will be a positive outcome.

[Harriet Cross]

Q I think my question is about the broader principle of whether it is also value for money. If you are giving tax relief somewhere, you would want to know what the impact of that is—for example, if the impact is on job growth, that is great. But would you not want to know what the impact of it is on a certain thing, compared with if you had spent that money elsewhere? Surely, whether it is positive or negative, an analysis is an important part of seeing whether money is being spent in the most efficient way possible.

Jim McMahon: That will be considered in the round. To be clear, however, it was a manifesto commitment to rebalance the on-street with the online, to get back to supporting the high street, and to give sustained support to the businesses that are the backbone of our community. The Bill is delivering that manifesto commitment. We do not shy away from that. We are proud that within the first six months, the legislation is coming and businesses will feel it in every community in the country.

[The Chair]

We have eight minutes left, five people still to speak, and a vote is due any second now.