As someone who spent 20 years in business, including running two businesses, prior to coming into this place, there is a great deal I would like to say today, but the restrictions we have on time mean that I am going to restrict my remarks really to the hospitality sector. There are many different sectors that have had a really difficult time during the pandemic. I am concerned about the self-employed, particularly those who find that they have become a bad credit risk in the eyes of the bank because they availed themselves of one of the Government support schemes. I am very concerned about the high street. Anyone who takes a trip to almost any high street in the land will see that the pandemic has increased the pace of shop closures.
However, I do want to touch particularly on the hospitality sector, as the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) did just a moment ago. This crucial sector employs almost 3 million people, it delivers £66 billion of revenue and pays tens of billions of pounds in taxes. I do not want anyone to think that, because the Government decided not to close the hospitality sector in the run-up to Christmas, English publicans, restaurant owners or hoteliers were therefore the lucky ones. The truth is that many organisations in this sector had a massive reduction in their business over Christmas—they saw cancellations of Christmas parties—and while the sector may not have been forcibly closed, their takings were well down, and many providers told me they had taken on staff on the basis that it would be the busiest time of the year, only to find it much quieter than normal.
Business rates is a crucial issue. Everyone listening to this debate today will have heard a very clear message: the Labour party is the party of reform of business rates, and the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) made it absolutely clear that the Tory party is the party of a temporary discount and stick to the same old system. This system penalises pubs, it penalises the hospitality sector, it penalises manufacturing and the high street, and it protects the internet businesses that do not on the whole put as much into the economy as those sectors. I support what we are proposing here today.
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