Two thirds of pubs will shut this winter unless help is urgently given to tackle rising costs, a business chief has warned. Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, head of the British Chambers of Commerce, issued the stark warning saying venues will close if they do not get the support they need.
She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme pubs needed to have help now to prevent them from closing. She said: “At the moment we’re talking about up to two thirds of pubs may have shut their doors.
“We cannot be in a situation where more and more businesses are shutting down because of costs that are absolutely outside their control. They cannot get support in any other way, it’s not as if they can borrow the money.
"They’ve come out of Covid, they’ve already got loans, they’ve already got higher costs from National Insurance. There still isn’t a reduction on VAT.
“They absolutely have got to deal with the rising cost of inflation as well. This is too much, they have to have support now.”
The Conservative peer, said measures suggested by Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, including reductions in VAT and business rates for retail and hospitality, tax breaks for energy intensive industries, is the “right territory” to help people this winter. She told the programme: “I think unless there is immediate and urgent support, we will see many businesses close their doors this winter.
"The scale (of support) I think is going to have to be particularly considerable, and I think one of the big measures we are asking for, and have been for some time, is for Covid-style support to be given by measure of a Government emergency energy grant for all SMEs. Now this will be similar to what the Government had to do for the Covid business grant schemes.”
The British Chambers of Commerce has forecast that the UK will enter into a recession before the end of 2022. The Baroness, who is president of the organisation, said: “We still believe, currently, that we are going into recession now.
“We’ve just put out an economic forecast today that talks about that. But all these measures will start to change that because the challenge for us is, we’re not just talking about big businesses, many of whom are going to really, really struggle.
“We’re talking about more and more and more SMEs, which are the lifeblood of our economy. So they need more support now, as they did during Covid. This for us is no different.” She agreed that measures to help businesses wouldn’t prevent a recession but would make it shorter and less deep.
She said she has not spoken to Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss about the future of businesses in light of rising costs. Questioned if she feels there is “recognition” from the pair that there needs to be emergency support available to help businesses, she said: “I don’t know. I can’t tell you if it’s there. Because all we’ve had so far publicly are many words and not an action plan. Now we need an action plan. We need a plan and we need it delivered next week.”
Asked if she had spoken to Ms Truss or Mr Sunak about what they’re planning, she responded: “No, I’ve only had conversations with Rishi Sunak during the pandemic about the support required then. We haven’t had any recent conversations, but we’ve laid out very clearly what we would like to see happen over the coming days.”
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