Pub and Hospitality Sector

Debate between Jamie Stone and Mike Wood

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms Vaz, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to respond to this important debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Official Opposition, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on securing it at such a crucial time for the industry.

Pubs and hospitality are a force for good. They are good for the economy, contributing more than £120 billion nationally and delivering £54 billion in tax receipts to the Treasury, which I am sure the Chancellor will be grateful for next week. They are good for jobs, employing 3.5 million people across every age band, from teenagers to pensioners, and with an even gender balance. They are also good for our communities; our pubs, cafés and restaurants are the heart of local life, bringing people together. Indeed, for many villages the pub or café is the last service surviving in the village, offering a community hub that covers everything from jobs clubs and parents and toddler groups through to serving as the village shop, and even—as I saw at one Pub is The Hub initiative in Cornwall—the hairdressers.

Pubs are a force for good socially, helping to tackle the scourge of loneliness and isolation. Few people could have failed to be moved by the advert for Charlie’s Bar last Christmas. It shows an elderly man walking from his house to his wife’s grave, raising his cap to passers-by, only to be blanked, but he finds comfort and companionship in his local in Fermanagh.

Less well celebrated are the hundreds of initiatives up and down the country, such as the Go To Place at Love & Liquor in Codsall in my constituency, which brings 60 or more people together each Wednesday morning for a coffee, a chat and a bit of breakfast. Although we are all too familiar with the dangers of excess drinking, well-regulated and well-run pubs and bars are forces for good for our mental health. The work done by Professor Dunbar at Oxford university shows that people who have a local where they drink regularly in moderation are likely to be happier and more content than those who do not. Their physical and mental health is likely to be better than that of people who do not. They are likely to have more friends on whom they can depend and feel more engaged in their community than people who do not.

Pubs and hospitality venues have, of course, faced a range of pressures over the past few decades, some of which have been referred to. Some are the results of changing consumer demands, preferences and social habits, but others have been exacerbated by policy decisions made here in Westminster and Whitehall, such as the smoking ban, high business rate bills, and alcohol duty rates that are significantly higher than most western European countries.

The previous Government took a range of actions to help to alleviate some of those pressures. They abandoned Labour’s hated duty escalator, which had meant above-inflation rises in duty every single year. They cut beer duty for the first time in half a century, and introduced multiple freezes in duty, which means that beer duty on a pint in a pub is now significantly lower in real terms than it was in 2010. They introduced a reduced rate of duty for draught beer and cider, taking advantage of the freedoms after Brexit. They helped to reduce the huge disparity in the costs that pubs and bars face, compared with supermarkets and off-licences.

The link between duty rates and alcohol consumption is tenuous, but we know that higher taxes on alcohol lead people to switch their drinking from well-regulated licensed premises to drinking at home, and from drinking lower strength beers and ciders to higher alcohol by volume wines and spirits.

Crucially, hospitality and retail business rate relief has meant that small and independent hospitality venues have received 75% off their business rates. That has made the difference for many between being able to continue and being forced to shut their doors for good.

The new Government made a lot of promises before the election, some of which they now seem to be trying to row back from, but pubs and hospitality need them to deliver now, starting with next week’s Budget. The Chancellor needs to start with a cut to alcohol duty. A return to the previous Labour Government’s approach of continuous duty rises would be devastating for many pubs and breweries. That could be done by widening the draught beer duty differential, cutting the cost of draught beers and ciders in pubs, bars and restaurants, and targeting support where it is desperately needed. Above all, the Chancellor needs to finally publish her replacement for business rates with a new system that is fair for the hospitality sector, which pays a disproportionate share of business rate receipts—

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Gentleman mentions business rates. As the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) said, pubs are closing twice as fast in parts of Scotland than they are on this side of the border. Sir Tim Martin, the boss of Wetherspoons, has in recent days strongly criticised the Scottish Government for their deeply unhelpful attitude to rating. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the finger should be pointed north of the border too, and that something should be done before more pubs close?

[Mike Wood]

I certainly agree that, although in England the hospitality sector has long had a number of challenges, the picture north of the border is even worse because of decisions made by the Scottish Government.

It is essential that the Chancellor publishes the replacement for business rates. She announced three years ago that she would scrap them, but the sector is still no clearer about what she will bring in instead. It needs clarity next week. If for some reason, even after three years, the Chancellor still cannot say with what she is replacing business rates, she must commit to extending the 75% relief, and not just until next March or the March after but right up until a new system is in place.

Hospitality businesses are particularly impacted by high energy costs. The Government need to make good on the promises to help that they made before the election. The Prime Minister promised to take £53 billion off business energy bills by 2030. I ask the Minister a simple question: how much can hospitality businesses expect their energy bills to fall by next year?

Pubs and hospitality also need the Government to recognise the impact of regulation, no matter how well intentioned, on small hospitality businesses in particular. It was disappointing that neither the Deputy Prime Minister nor the Business Secretary seemed to acknowledge the warnings in their own impact assessment about the harms that could be caused to small businesses in sectors like hospitality by their employment legislation. Those fears are only made worse by reports the Government are considering further regulation, banning smoking in outdoor beer gardens and outside nightclubs. That change would have minimal, if any, health benefits while causing huge damage to venues. It could even have the perverse effect of shifting people from drinking outside in beer gardens to drinking and smoking more inside their homes.

Finally, as has been said, for the many pubs and hospitality venues that are just about getting by, the reported rise in employer’s national insurance contributions could tip many over the edge, making the difference between continuing and closing. If the Chancellor insists on going ahead with this highly damaging jobs tax, then it is even more important that the Government do more to support pubs and hospitality.

I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire for bringing this debate, because pubs and hospitality are a force for good. They need and deserve our support.

Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Debate between Jamie Stone and Mike Wood

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The breadth and scale of the support package put in place by the Government is genuinely unprecedented, whether in times of war, disease or global recession. In Dudley South, nearly 12,000 of my constituents have been supported through the job retention scheme, and 2,500 more have been supported through the self-employment income support scheme. Without such measures, thousands more of my constituents and millions of workers around the country would have lost their jobs. Whereas the last Labour Government chose to bail out the bankers, this Government have decided that the real priority is to back working people around the country, and that is something of which I am extremely proud.

We now need people back at work and the economy growing so that those jobs can be genuinely protected and sustainable in the medium and long term. It is not just a matter of sandwich shops and coffee bars losing out when large numbers of workers are away from the office and the factory for so long. We live and work in an interconnected economy where all parts of it rely on other sectors. One of the main factors limiting order books for manufacturers and other businesses in my constituency is the fact that so much of the economy is performing below normal capacity, and that impacts on supply chains. The longer that many jobs are furloughed, the less likely those jobs are to be there and to be sustainable whenever the furlough scheme ends, and that is why it is not appropriate to have an indefinite extension of the scheme.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Member is very courteous to give way. I too pay tribute to the furlough scheme, which has been very helpful to businesses in my constituency. I am the chair of the Excluded UK all-party parliamentary group. Other Members have made this point already, but does he agree that the APPG would not have happened had it not been for support from the Government Benches? It would be helpful if we could have a meeting with Ministers from the Treasury to discuss constructively how we might be able to help the people who have been missed out.

[Mike Wood]

I obviously will not answer on behalf of Ministers as to their availability for meetings, but for those who fell outside these extensive schemes, I think they more than anybody need the economy to be moving back towards a state approaching normality, because that is where their sustainable income comes from. The quicker we can do that, the better it is for them.

While it would not be appropriate to have an indefinite extension of the furlough scheme—I do not think furlough is even a medium-term solution—there are some parts of the economy where there are particular needs for support. The measures announced earlier this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for businesses that are told to shut and for individuals who are made to self-isolate are extremely welcome. I do hope that Ministers will look at what measures other than furlough might be appropriate for those businesses when legislative requirements mean that they cannot operate or cannot operate economically —we have heard about theatres and live events—or where ongoing regulations mean that demand has simply being taken away. For some parts of the tourism and travel sector, for example, quarantine measures mean that their customer base is not there at all. Businesses across the economy would not have survived the last six months without the innovative support that has been put in place by the Chancellor. I thoroughly welcome that, but now we need to build the economy for a sustainable future.

Good Work Plan

Debate between Jamie Stone and Mike Wood

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Flexibility in our labour market is to be welcomed but exploitation is not. Sadly this distinction is too often missed by those on the Labour Front Bench in their pursuit of ideological dogma. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the impact of banning exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts?

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I welcome the announcement about the Swedish derogation—it would be churlish not to—but I was surprised that there was no mention in the statement of people with disabilities. If this country is to punch above our weight in an increasingly competitive world, we will have to empower people with disabilities as never before; it would be folly not to use their skills and knowledge in the future. How will the Secretary of State ensure that the 21st century economy works for our disabled people?