Downing Street has insisted the government backs pubs, as a growing number sign up to a campaign to bar Labour MPs from their premises in protest at tax rates.
The Labour MP ban was kicked off a week ago by Andy Lennox, landlord of the Old Thatch in Dorset, championing the ban and more than 250 pubs, restaurants and hotels signing up all over the country.
Mr Lennox said the ban was a last resort after multiple campaigns spelling out the need for tax cuts ended with higher taxes for hospitality.
But the prime minister’s official spokesman said the chancellor had delivered a £4.3bn support package for pubs, restaurants, and cafes because hospitality is a “vital part of our economy”.
He said: “Without this intervention pubs would have faced a 45% rise in bills next year. We’ve cut that down to just 4%.
“We’ve also maintained the draft beer duty cut, eased licences rules over pavement drinks and events, and capped corporation tax.
“These measures show we’re backing hospitality not abandoning it.”
Industry body UKHospitality disputes the government’s figures, both for the support package and the impact of intervention.
Asked how the prime minister felt about potentially being barred from his local pub over Christmas, the spokesman said: “The PM is obviously going to be working hard up to Christmas. I won’t get ahead of his Christmas plans.”
He refused to comment further on individual businesses’ polices.
But Mr Lennox said the campaign to bar the PM and other Labour MPs from pubs was only happening because the government had not responded to the hospitality industry’s needs.
The industry had mounted “huge, professional campaigning efforts”, including contacting every MP and hand-delivering letters to the Chancellor’s door, he told the BBC.
“Everyone is fed up because the Labour government hasn’t listened and instead has taxed us more.
“What’s really angered people is they they’re acting as if they haven’t – it’s as if somebody has pushed the wrong button and, instead of taxing Amazon and the warehouses they’re taxing us instead.
“We have been imploring our MPs for years because people are going out of business, and it’s not because they’re a bad business, but because they’re being taxed to oblivion.”
Bournemouth East’s Labour MP Tom Hayes, made a video reacting to the “No Labour MPs” sign that has gone up in one of his local pubs, the Larderhouse, whose landlord James Fowler was the first to join the campaign.
In a video posted on Facebook, the MP said: “It’s the Christmas season, it’s meant to be the joyful season, but the Larderhouse and other businesses with a “no Labour MPs” sticker in the window are undermining the inclusive culture that business owners locally have helped to nourish.
“My job has just got a million times harder because I can’t go and bang the drum for businesses with the Chancellor if I can’t speak to business owners because they’re banning me from doing so.”
Sounding upset, he added: “We need to get politics off the high street full stop, but especially at Christmas, when frankly we have enough playground politics over in parliament, we have enough division in our country.”
Mr Lennox said: The ban is a risky move for us to make and I understand the bridges I have burned.
“Tom Hayes is a good guy and he has engaged with us and signed letters, so there’s nothing wrong with Tom.
“But his frustration with landlords should be directed at his government, not the people who are having to protest like this.”
The UK’s 20% VAT rate for hospitality is one of the highest rates in Europe, with most countries charging about half that, and the Liberal Democrats called for a 5% VAT cut ahead of the Budget.
Mr Lennox said reducing the tax would “solve all the issues”, adding: “Cutting VAT will generate more growth and more taxation, so the government will make the money back but we’re allowed to make a profit first.”
Many businesses are also angry about changes to business rates, announced in last month’s Budget, that they say could add tens of thousands to their bills every year.
The government said it would calculate business rates for 750,000 High Street retail and hospitality firms using a lower percentage of the rateable value of premises, but this lower tax rate was not as generous as expected.
At the same time, many firms have seen their rateable value increase and face the phasing out of a Covid-era 40% discount from April.
The net result is that, despite some transitional relief, lots of them will see significant increases in their business rates bill.
Downing Street said the government was capping the business rate increases at 15% for most most properties and at £800 for the smallest.
From April there will be new, permanently lower tax rates for retail, hospitality and leisure, which he said will be the lowest in more than 30 years for small venues and would provide “certainty and stability for the future,” the spokesman said.
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