Don’t raise a glass to Starmer’s plan for pubs
Keir Starmer claims he has a plan to save the struggling hospitality sector, but the detail is thin and all his other actions – like banning vapes and junkfood advertising – suggest his every impulse is to control people’s behaviour, says Eliot Wilson
“Pubs and bars are the beating heart of our communities. Under our Plan for Change, we’re backing them to thrive.”
It was not necessarily a sentiment you might expect from Sir Keir Starmer, a man who handles a half-pint like a grenade with a loose pin. But it is, seemingly, a welcome one. The hospitality industry in general and the licensed trade in particular are facing a dire situation: last year 289 pubs closed in England and Wales, and 2,250 have gone out of business since 2019. Britain now has fewer than 45,000 pubs, and if the rate of decline were to continue, the last boozer would close its doors in 2050.
If the government is “backing them to thrive”, this must be great news for pubs, then? Keep the champagne on ice for a moment, and understand what the Prime Minister is actually promising.
The government has announced a consultation “seeking views and evidence to develop a modern, proportionate and enabling licensing system under the Licensing Act 2003”. It is true that ministers have promised to reduce regulatory burdens by 25 per cent by the end of the parliament, though that applies to the economy as a whole.
Action this day?
It is also true that in April the government set up a joint public sector and industry taskforce, co-chaired by Nick McKenzie, CEO of pub giant Greene King, and Gareth Thomas, then minister for services, small business and exports. The taskforce reported in July and set out a series of recommendations, but some hearts will sink to read that these included a National Licensing Policy Framework, an Evidence and Data Protocol and “promoting cultural representation in licensing”. This is not one of Winston Churchill’s famous red “Action this Day” tags.
Of course in some cases a bureaucratic problem requires a bureaucratic solution: if licensing regulations are too strict, onerous or cumbersome, they can only be changed or scrapped entirely by administrative action. And these recommendations are now subject to a consultation, albeit a fast-track “four-week blitz”. The government is treading a delicate line; when it says the review will “tear up outdated licensing rules that have been holding back pubs, [and] bars”, is it prejudging the response of the consultation? If it is, why not just implement the policies immediately?
The comment by business and trade secretary Peter Kyle was illuminating.
“This review will help us cut through the red tape that has held back our brilliant hospitality sector, giving them the freedom to flourish while keeping communities safe. That is the balance we’re trying to strike.”
If this “four-week blitz” is not an empty formality, he cannot possibly know that: it is possible, even if unlikely, that the result of the consultation will be negative. Moreover, that qualification, “while keeping communities safe”, looks suspiciously like an all-purpose, pre-prepared excuse for inaction.
The taskforce’s recommendations would make welcome policy, but other serious challenges for the hospitality industry are of the government’s making. Last year’s Budget cut the relief on business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure from 75 per cent to 40 per cent (the Conservatives have now pledged to scrap them altogether for high street pubs).
In the NICs of time
The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, also increased secondary Class 1 National Insurance Contributions – paid by employers – from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, and lowered the threshold at which employers are liable from £9,100 to £5,000. Even HM Revenue and Customs admitted that, while 250,000 employers would see their NI bill fall, 940,000 will have to pay more.
These are not acts of God, but decisions made by the Treasury and approved by Number 10 Downing Street. They cast a pall over the government’s fixed-grin enthusiasm that it is “helping venues bring more fun, flavour and connection to our high streets and making it simpler to enjoy the best of British hospitality”. Ministers have already made that hospitality more expensive.
More than this, a change in mindset is required. The government has banned advertising of “unhealthy foods”, banned their promotion, including refills of drinks, banned disposable vapes and is moving towards banning tobacco. It believes zealously in legislation to control personal behaviour.
Last week the left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research recommended “pricing interventions – through duty escalators, standardised rates across products and minimum unit pricing” to curb alcohol consumption. You can see why it thinks it is pushing at an open door.
Sir Keir Starmer must decide what he believes. Does he support “cutting red tape, boosting footfall” so that “our locals do well”? So far, he has consistently used the heavy hand of legislation to restrict, not deregulate. What would an evening in a Starmer-approved pub be like? I leave you with that thought.
Eliot Wilson is a writer