UK BUDGET DOES NOTHING BUT INCREASE COST OF DOING BUSINESS FOR HOSPITALITY
30 October 2024
Joel Neill, Operations Director, Hospitality Ulster, said:
"While our hospitality colleagues in England and Wales are rightly upset at the lowering of the 75% business rates relief to the 40% announced in today's Budget, hospitality businesses in Northern Ireland were never party to this relief. Paired with the Budget's increase of the National Minimum and Living Wage, increase in employers' National Insurance contributions and decrease in the threshold for those contributions, today's Budget will have done nothing but increase the cost of doing business for hospitality.
"We all want to see people paid more. Our members want to reward good work and make work pay but what is being asked of businesses is simply unsustainable if taxes are going to shoot up at the same time. Without the extension of rates relief to Northern Ireland's hospitality businesses or a decrease to VAT, these measures will only threaten employment and businesses in the sector.
"While the cutting of duty on draught alcohol might have raised some cheers in Westminster, the reality is that these savings are unlikely to be passed onto the customer due to the increased cost of doing business. Trying to balance the books from pockets of high street businesses will simply leave hospitality as collateral damage - threatening jobs, future investment, price increases for consumers, and business viability."