Rachel Reeves will this weekend be told by some of Britain’s biggest hospitality groups that the tax hikes imposed in last month’s Budget risk triggering a tsunami of job losses across the sector.
Sky News has learnt that dozens of bosses from pub, restaurant and hotel operators have agreed to sign a letter to the chancellor calling her inaugural fiscal statement “regressive in [its] impact on lower earners” and warning that “business closures and job losses within a year” are inevitable.
The letter, an early draft of which has been seen by Sky News, has been circulated among executives from Stonegate Group, Britain’s biggest pubs operator; a division of the company which owns Wagamama; Burger King; the Hotel du Vin and Malmaison hotel chains; and Tossed, the high street salad bar operator.
One signatory cautioned this weekend that the contents of the final letter had yet to be finalised and could change.
Collectively, the signatories employ tens of thousands of people across Britain, although the final tally was unclear on Saturday as UK Hospitality, the trade body coordinating the letter, was still canvassing members about their willingness to put their names to it.
In the letter, they repeat a warning that steep increases in employers’ national insurance bills, coupled with the hike in the national living wage, will cost the hospitality industry close to £3.5bn annually.
They also say that the commercial viability of “important public sector catering contracts for schools, hospitals and prisons” will be thrown into question.
Ms Reeves said in the Budget that the Treasury would yield an extra £25bn annually from the employer NICs (national insurance contributions) increase, prompting a barrage of criticism from retailers and hospitality companies which have large numbers of part-time…
