Kate Nicholls OBE: Easter the ‘most ambitious’ reopening date for hospitality

Government’s “most ambitious” post-lockdown roadmap won’t see hospitality reopen until after Easter, UK Hospitality CEO Kate Nicholls OBE has said.

Speaking at MCA’s The Conversation, Nicholls dismissed rumours that 3 May has been talked about centrally as a proposed reopening date, instead suggesting this could be a realistic endpoint for social distancing restrictions.

With Government timetables entirely dependent on the vaccine roll-out, Nicholls explained that the reopening of pubs, restaurants and bars will likely coincide with the vaccinations of the over 50s.

“The most ambitious timetables that I’ve seen so far suggested we could get the over 50s vaccinated by Easter,” she said. “I think if anybody was looking at having Mother’s Day, or hitting the start of the school holidays at the end of March, it’s unlikely, but with a fair wind we might be able to reopen with restrictions shortly after Easter.”

Though restrictions will inevitably remain in place for the first few months of reopening, Nicholls warned there was a “very real danger” that some public health divisions could lobby to extend certain restrictions indefinitely.

“We have heard from Public Health England and some of the public health campaigners that restrictions might be re-imposed every winter,” she said. “And equally, on a local authority level there’s some that have said table service would be good to continue from a licensing point of view.

“We know that the police and local licencing officers have wanted to have table service for some time. We are sending a strong message back that those changes would break the model of many businesses.

“The margin just won’t maintain it, so the economic driver will make us successful in getting those restraints lifted as soon as practically possible.

“It is imperative we make sure Government understands that a pub has to come back as a pub, and a casual dining restaurant has to come back as casual dining.”

In the meantime, the trade body has continued to push for an extension to the VAT cut and business rates holiday, two proposals that Government has said are under “active consideration,” and ahead of the 3 March budget Nicholls has said members of the industry must do the same.

“Government are looking ahead to the future, they’re looking ahead to their legacy,” she said. “And Boris Johnson does not want Brexit and COVID to be his legacy. He wants to move on to talk about levelling up, recovery, spreading growth, investment, jobs and skills across the country as rapidly as possible.

“The obvious answer to that is hospitality, but we can only do that if we’re at full strength. There is a neat circular argument that explains why those two levers are so important.

“The question to the Chancellor is: how quickly do you want the economy to grow and recover? No other part of the economy delivers as quickly as hospitality, and no other part of the economy does it in every single region and constituency.”