The celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has accused the government of cooking up a kitchen nightmare at restaurants across the country with tax changes that he says will make hospitality businesses “lambs to the slaughter”.
Ramsay, whose company operates 34 restaurants in the UK including Bread Street Kitchen, Pétrus and Lucky Cat, said the industry was “facing a bloodbath”. He said restaurants were closing every day as a result of rising business rates, which came on top of higher energy, staffing and ingredient costs and little growth in consumer spending.
“I’ve never seen it so bad,” Ramsay told the Standardnews site. “When I look ahead to April, when the budget measures come in, I think those of us in hospitality are lambs to the slaughter.”
He said the fact that businesses were still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, during which many restaurants were forced to close for months as part of government-ordered lockdowns, meant the situation was even worse than after the 2008 financial crisis.
“We’re being suffocated,” said the restaurateur, whose business made an operating loss despite increasing sales in 2024, the latest accounts available. “We need more oxygen – a reduction in rates of 20% or 25%.”
Ramsay’s comments came after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said this month she was considering measures to support pubs, after criticisms of changes in the budget to business rates, which replaced generous Covid support measures with new lower discounts, just as many businesses faced increases linked to revaluations of their properties.
However, Reeves told the World Economic Forum in Davos this week that her planned support package would not cover the wider hospitality sector.
While many big retailers have seen bills remain steady or fall, the trade body UKHospitality has forecast that increased rates bills will lead to the closure of an estimated 963 restaurants, 574 hotels and 540 pubs this year, if the government does not introduce hospitality-wide assistance.
The government has put in place several billions of pounds of support to help those facing big bill rises this year, but Ramsay said the changes in rates should be introduced more slowly. “The trouble is that the rises are coming in too quickly, at one of the worst possible moments,” he said.
He said the government needed to consult industry more about its plans and think ahead to what its actions would lead to.
Increases in the cost of living for many households, which have pulled back on treats such as meals out and trips to the pub as they spend more on household bills and food, mean it is difficult to pass on higher costs to customers.
“Customers are at their breaking point too,” Ramsay said.
He said the difficult business conditions were also dissuading entrepreneurial chefs from opening new restaurants.
“We’re all going to miss out on a generation of independent chefs and independent restaurants. Everyone loses. The government’s plans simply will not work, I promise you now,” he said.
