Hospitality Sector Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business and Trade
Sarah Bool
Main Page: Sarah Bool (Conservative - South Northamptonshire)Department Debates - View all Sarah Bool's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
Hospitality Sector
Sarah Bool Excerpts(3 days, 22 hours ago)
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Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler.
With the weather we are experiencing at the moment, topping out at 33°C here today in London, who needs to travel abroad? We can head to our bars, restaurants, tourist attractions and have a staycation in the beautiful UK. South Northamptonshire has more than 220 hospitality businesses, which employ around 3,000 people. We will experience much focus this weekend because we have the grand prix at Silverstone and I declare I am looking forward to seeing some of that racing. However, the focus goes far beyond that, because we have to think about our smaller hospitality businesses, whether that is the Plough at Shutlanger, the Red Lion in Brackley, the Red Lion in Bozeat, the White Hart in Hackleton or the Rose and Crown in Yardley Hastings—I literally have too many to name, but they are vital to our sector—
Sarah Bool
There would be at least 95 to name.
We ask all those who run these businesses to take a risk. We ask them to keep our communities together and to offer jobs, but we do not give them the environment in which to flourish. They are working so very hard, but it is a real struggle with employer national insurance increases, business energy costs remaining incredibly high and the national minimum wage increase of about 17% in little over a year. Nationally since April, 220 pubs have had to shut and more than 1,000 have shut in the last year. What are the Government going to do to turn this around? I ask the Minister to consider the measures proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood).
We must remember—this is a word of warning—that in rural areas, we do not have the luxury, as we do in cities such as London, of being able to go to a pub or restaurant in another street. The loss of a pub, restaurant or hotel leaves a vast desert. Covid, when we all had to isolate, reminded us of the importance of social interaction and contact. I say to the Minister, “Please do not deny rural communities these opportunities through poor policy.”