Editor’s Viewpoint : Finally, A Voice That Gets It

By Peter Adams, Editor, CLH News.

It was outside Parliament, at a “pots and pans” demonstration a couple of years back, that I first encountered Daisy Cooper’s genuine passion for our sector. (She won’t remember of course I’m not that memorable)!

The Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson and Deputy Leader wasn’t there for a photo opportunity—she was there because she understands what hospitality means to communities, to employment, and to the fabric of British life.

She gets it.

Her recent calls (see front page) for a decisive VAT cut for hospitality have reminded me why that moment stuck with me. Because whilst Cooper is listening, our Chancellors—past and present—most certainly are not.

Jeremy Hunt didn’t get it. Rachel Reeves doesn’t get it. To them, hospitality is simply a cash cow to be milked annually, with little regard for the consequences. They remain tone deaf to an industry haemorrhaging businesses at an alarming rate.

Regular readers will recall that when the then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak introduced a VAT cut in July 2020, I wrote to commend his courage. Coming out of lockdown, he recognised that hospitality, tourism and leisure were “the hardest hit” by the COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary reduction to 5%—later increased to 12.5% before reverting to the full 20%—was designed to help pubs, restaurants, cafés and hotels facing closures, social distancing restrictions and collapsing demand.

It worked. It gave businesses breathing room. It saved jobs. It showed what political will could achieve, and I wrote to say KEEP IT, its in place, it has been so very well received, extend it for the next two years.

I received a polite but emphatic NO! which was so disappointing.

Fast forward to today, and the sector faces strikingly similar challenges—minus the social distancing, but with rising closures and falling demand that are the undeniable result of government policy. Tax rates are too high, and this is the inevitable consequence.

Add to that increased energy costs, rising wages, and reduced consumer spending, and you have a perfect storm. Recent tax hikes—particularly increases in employer National Insurance contributions—have created crippling financial strain.

Industry leaders have warned repeatedly that these costs are forcing closures and job losses across the country.

Yet every call for relief has fallen on deaf ears.

I suspect the Liberal Democrats’ calls will meet the same fate. Westminster seems remarkably adept at ignoring the hospitality sector until it’s convenient to point fingers when high streets hollow out and communities lose their focal points.

But I live in hope. Because Daisy Cooper gets it. She understands that hospitality isn’t just an economic sector—it’s where memories are made, where communities gather, where careers begin.

And perhaps, just perhaps, her voice might cut through the Treasury’s wilful ignorance.

If it doesn’t, we’ll be writing similar pieces next year about even more closures, even more job losses, and yet another government that treated our sector as a revenue stream rather than a vital part of national life.

The sector has been patient. It has been resilient. But patience and resilience don’t pay National Insurance contributions or spiralling energy bills.

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I can always be contacted at edit@catererlicensee.com