The capital’s pubs are fighting perennial last orders. Figures earlier this year from the Night Time Industries Association revealed that more than 3,000 nightclubs, bars and pubs have been forced to shut in and around London since the start of the pandemic. Other research finds that the capital lost 40 pubs and bars last year.
So the news that the Government is reportedly considering banning smoking in some outdoor areas will spark alarm in the hospitality sector, already managing rising costs in everything from energy to staffing. Were it to be implemented, such a policy would be of a piece with the contradiction at the heart of this new administration. On the one hand, its mission is to boost economic growth. Sir Keir Starmer has set his sights not lower than securing “the highest sustained growth in the G7”. Yet the Government appears to recoil in horror at any move to achieve this.
