Pub and Hospitality Sector

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this important debate.

In my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley, pubs are a huge part of our local community. They are our meeting place, a place to socialise, and a place to wind down after a busy week or even a busy day, and can also provide a vital place to help to address loneliness, improve mental health and wellbeing, and address socialisation. I aim to recognise the great work of pubs through my own best pub award, drawing positive attention to some of the fantastic pubs from across my constituency.

Previous winners include the Craven Heifer in Addingham, which does a mighty meat pie; The Brown Cow in Keighley, where hon. Members will find one of the best-poured pints of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord; the Goats Head in Steeton, one of the friendliest pubs embedded in the heart of the community; and of course the Haworth Steam Brewery, which always has a fantastic atmosphere and a great vibe, and which is home not only to its own beers but to Howarth gin.

One of the common themes in what all those pubs have told me is that small businesses across our hospitality sector constantly face that battle against Government red tape. That is why the last Government raised the VAT threshold to £90,000, which meant that over 28,000 businesses benefited from not needing to be VAT-registered. I would like a reassurance from the Minister that this Government will not look to reduce that threshold or implement a VAT cut.

I am also concerned by other measures that the Government are rumoured to be looking at, such as employer national insurance or business rates relief— I urge the Government to keep that business rates relief in place—as well as the measures in the Employment Rights Bill, which had its Second Reading yesterday. I cannot stress enough how concerned small businesses are about the challenges that will be created by that Bill. Also, given that the economic analysis was released so late, what are the real unintended consequences to small businesses right across the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Thomas]

I heard the point the hon. Gentleman made, and I want to come to the issue of access to talent to work in pubs and hospitality venues. While we always need to consider issues around visas and the right to work, we can do more to help people in our country to get access to jobs in the pubs and hospitality industry. The point I intend to make in relation to the intervention by the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) is pertinent to that.

As I said, we all know that hospitality businesses are struggling to recover from the pandemic, where closures and customer restrictions decimated cash reserves and drove up levels of debt. I say this gently with so many Conservative Members present, but the subsequent cost of living crisis, which was driven in part by the incompetence of previous Governments, has compounded the challenge for hospitality businesses and increased costs, and it has caused real difficulties and challenges for businesses in repaying some of those debts. One thinks in particular of the contribution Liz Truss made to those issues.

[Robbie Moore]

I am sure the Minister will get to it, but I am really keen to understand some of the specifics of what he is doing in his role as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade. What is the nature of his conversations with the Chancellor and the Treasury, specifically around business rates relief, VAT threshold, VAT duty, beer duty and the concerns raised by the likes of UKHospitality with the Employment Rights Bill? I am sure he is getting there, but this side of the House is keen to understand what he is doing in his role in the conversations with the Chancellor on the forthcoming Budget.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the prompt to get on to the issues around the Budget next week. He will understand, as one or two of his colleagues alluded to earlier, that I will not speculate on what will or will not be included in the Chancellor’s Budget. However, I can say that we recognise the very important role that hospitality businesses play in supporting local economies and communities, and we understand the pressures facing those businesses. When we were in Opposition, one of the biggest complaints we heard from high street businesses was the unfairness of the antiquated system of business rates. I apologise to him—I appreciate it is difficult to hear—but I think one of the reasons his party lost the confidence of the business community was because it had made multiple promises to abolish or reform the business rates system, but never actually got to that issue.

Business rates are particularly unfair for hospitality, leisure and tourism businesses which, as others have alluded to, create 5% of the UK’s GDP but pay 15% of all business rates. Not only is the current system of business rates unfair, but we know that it disincentivises investment, creates uncertainty and places an undue burden on our highstreets, and in the context of this debate, on pubs and hospitality and venues. That is why we included in our manifesto a commitment to reform business rates, and it is why the Chancellor has continued to commit to setting out next steps on that at the next Budget.