Peter Martin: ‘We must mobilise against the government health lobby’

The hospitality sector must mobilise against the government’s “health lobby” in using pubs and restaurants as a scapegoat for transmission “with very little evidence,” CGA vice president and MCA contributing editor Peter Martin has said.

Speaking at MCA’s The Conversation, Martin attributed the government’s latest round of restrictions to its “health bias” and predilection towards populist politics over data and facts.

Despite evidence of pent-up consumer demand for pubs and restaurants – in a recent CGA survey 76% of consumers said they would want to return to hospitality spaces in December – Martin highlighted the fact that broader public opinion polls have suggested most people supported the national lockdown.

“For everybody who likes a pub and thinks of it as a country pub with roses around a door, there’s somebody else who thinks it’s a den of drunkenness and debauchery,” he said. “There’s about a third of the country who probably don’t go out very often and don’t care that much.

“What we haven’t been able to do is really harness the broader public opinion.”

And with the government “playing to the electorate,” Martin added it should be a priority for the sector to sway the wider population towards supporting the plight of the sector.

“That seems to be one of the missing parts of the jigsaw, and it’s the only thing that could probably override that anti-alcohol or alcohol-dubious part of the health lobby,” he said. “It’s no good us doing it to the ones and twos, it needs to be properly coordinated.

“There’s a lot of data that shows pubs and restaurants are safe places to go, but it hasn’t swayed the government, so we’ve got to be well aware of the health lobby and mobilise against it.”

Which is exactly what UK Hospitality CEO Kate Nicholls is determined to do.

Also speaking at the event, Nicholls said one of the primary messages she is taking to ministers is that, according to the evidence, the main area of transmission is in households, rather than hospitality spaces.

“Opening hospitality is part of the solution because we can make sure people are safe, that they’re socially distance and that everything is hygienic,” she said. “You can’t say the same for people socialising at home.”

But although the trade body plans to press this point through December and beyond, she echoed Martin’s concerns of a health-focus narrative overriding the truth of transmission data.

Through SAGE and its two top advisors – Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance – the government are “listening to a strong health voice” she said, which is and has always been “very down on alcohol.”

“There is this perception that hospitality is all about alcohol, and that therefore it’s a weak link in the chain because people will spend longer in premises, drink alcohol, and therefore forget about social distancing,” she explained.

“Many of these health experts talk about the fact that people are standing at the bar, standing in groups, that people can be singing and dancing, but none of these things are permitted. They’re all restricted by legislation, so it’s an outdated perception of what the industry is like.”

Subsequently, Nicholls insisted hospitality is not a “weak link,” citing the ineffectiveness of hospitality lockdowns in the likes of Leicester, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, and now the nation in reducing case rates as evidence.

“The fact that nobody’s in hospitality, nobody’s going to hospitality, footfall is down, the venues are closed, and we’ve still got a problem with cases either going up or staying flat suggests that we’re not the weak link,” she said.

“But when you’ve got a government that is making these decisions with a small group of people, two of whom are on the health side, one of whom is on the economic side, it’s quite clear which loses out.

“It’s a very interesting real time experiment, but unfortunately, is an experiment with people’s lives, livelihoods and futures.”