Article from The Times: Pay up, chancellor and save our pubs

Today I wrote in The Times about the need to support our hospitality sector:

It's hard not to romanticise your local pub, especially in winter months, when the nights have come in. The warm glow through the pub windows acts like a beacon, drawing you in to catch up with a familiar band of friendly faces, warm and out of the bitter weather.

These last few months have been bitter indeed for hospitality, and especially for wet pubs. Many of the latter, the cornerstones of communities in the North, are running on fumes at the moment.

While they are incredibly grateful for the significant financial support why have seen from the Chancellor since the pandemic began, the reserves are now gone. They have spent significant sums making themselves COVID secure, getting ready to trade into a difficult environment where they would have less customers, but more overheads, and now many are wondering if they will ever open their doors again.

Of course we need to bear down on this virus and protect people and the NHS. But in working class communities like mine we worry about losing the beating heart of our towns and villages.

I spent this weekend visiting and speaking to pubs and publicans in my constituency of Barrow and Furness to take their temperature. Each had a story to tell about how they stepped up both during and beyond the first lockdown, co-ordinating community efforts and supporting those who supported them. One landlady, Sam from Barrow Island, told me how she had delivered food for those who were isolating, and is currently collecting toys to make sure that no child in the community goes without this Christmas.

Examples like this aren't isolated. Publicans repeatedly told me about their support for local resilience groups throughout the pandemic. Even when they were struggling, they looked out for those who most needed help.

Pub culture is a peculiar thing, but it is real and it is tangible. Strip a village of its post office or shop and it almost immediately feels hollowed out. Pubs are the same, but the wound is far deeper. They provide the ties that keep our communities together, and keep them strong. For some, especially the elderly, they are often one of the only chances for social interaction in people's lives.

If we want to emerge from this crisis with our communities intact then we need to make sure that our hospitality sector is still standing once the vaccines are rolled out and life returns to normal. That does mean giving them support if they are not permitted to trade their way through the crisis.

While support has been generous, wet pubs now face the indignity of stock going out of date, leading them to literally pour hundreds of pounds down the drain, time and time again, in what is normally their most profitable season.

Pub trade in December carries many of them through the early months of the next year. To have this closed off from them, but not to offer additional help, will be devastating.

I believe that the Treasury is listening very carefully to the sector, and I hope that they do so. As we rebuild from this crisis, we need the hospitality sector to be able to rebuild their businesses too, and to be given the right to trade safely once again.

Simon Fell is the Conservative MP for Barrow & Furness and a member of the Northern Research Group