Keir Starmer vs Tom Kerridge: The UK Hospitality Crisis

0:00I think sometimes people probably oversimplify this down to it's Tom Kerridge versus Keir Starmer, say at the minute. But as you get petition signed and start looking behind the curtain a bit, what can you tell us about the reality of actually getting change done? Like who actually makes the decisions? Well, there's a huge amount of people that have been able to build this together. It started probably about 10, 12 weeks ago where I had a conversation with Nick McKenzie, who is the CEO of Green King Pubs. Now, Nick is the hand of flowers, 21 years in business. Green King is our landlord. We pay them rent.

0:35We do whatever. My conversations with them have always been quite positive and always been really good. They've been a very supportive company from word go, not since we won Mission Stars or been famous or done whatever else. They have been a really supportive company. Now, my conversation with Nick was, listen, I've been on Newsnight. I've been on Question Time. I've been able to be at a meeting with Peter Carl, Business and Trade Secretary, in his office around the corner from here, that he invited me in. I sat there and went through business rates and what we need to do to understand how the business works, how hospitality can survive, that he understood.

1:14That behind the scenes, front bench ministers actually understood that a reduction in VAT is a process. They own the key and the lever to success of this. And it's gone to show because this summer they're doing the 5 % VAT on kids' meals. They're encouraging people to go out to theme park. They know that they have the levers to be able to encourage and show business growth in a hospitality world. They know it. It's an understanding of us being able to put that process together to show, to prove it. So I sat there with Nick and went, right, how do we do this? How do we build everybody on board?

1:50Because when I talk to them, they know. They understand. They are listening. treasury might not be listening i haven't i haven't had a direct route to treasury i have been able to speak to people since then but treasury the ones with the money the operators the business trade secretary the culture secretaries the people that are in that know that they need to do something it's unlocking treasury to get to that so in that conversation with nick is how do we bring everybody else on board all the other trade bodies the bii the bbma the uk hospitality other breweries how do we bring you know tim martin from weatherspoons how do we bring you know all of these big name people because it affects everybody it's not just a guy with two mission stars who's on the telly saying it it's everybody how do we how do we solve this problem and how do we put pressure on government so between nick made some calls we got everybody involved we we managed to agree a date and a time we all sat around here in this table i fed them all and said we need to work together on this conversation that i've had i feel that we are pushing on a door that is slightly ajar this is a moment in time and an opportunity to take it further down the line you had nigel farage at reform saying that he would reduce hospitality vat to 10 you got the liberal democrats jumping on board with it you got the conservatives going yeah hospitality vat needs to come down you then also got within party at that point andy burnham and angela rayner in manchester stood giving a speech saying that hospitality uh vat needs to come down the the noise about it cross party it's a non-political this isn't a political push it's political because it's a government that has to make the decision but it doesn't matter who was in power this is something that needs to happen that we'd need to push so as hospitality we drew together we built it together and then we constructed between all of us an understanding of how we'd launch what we would do build the branding get an understanding of time scales and go right we'll launch june the first saying this is the petition here's the website get on it june the first was launch into hospitality industry so that the industry get what's going on we understand what we're all going to we're all tying this in together for july the first to then launch by this point that's been announced this week all the collateral is there for um you can download your kind of like toolkit if you're in hospitality for um printing your own posters for putting a QR code on your billing system or your menu and then encouraging all your guests then from July the 1st here's your bill or here's the menu can you have a whilst you have a little look can you sign this petition and it's the easiest petition you could go through an official government petition that takes a hundred thousand signatures before it gets talked about in the House of Parliament but if you've ever looked or ever been on one of those it's like paying council tax it's the most dull it's the most boring people will click on it and then click off again it's like this is well i don't want that i don't i don't want an official one i want noise i want to officially be fucking loud let's tell them be as loud as possible they can't ignore they can't ignore loudness they could just it doesn't matter if it's official non-official they can't just pretend it's not happening if we're loud enough so it is put your name your email address sign petition no one sends you anything no one's gonna if you want stuff you can click and say yes send me some stuff it's just that simple it takes 20 seconds it's done and it's there and then go right let's get that into business so all that understanding of that infrastructure has been built by a lot of people government have also known i did warn government beforehand the people that i have been speaking to that we are building this and this is what we're going to do you know we will get to the point where you have to listen and then cross party has been mentioned in the houses of parliament on prime minister's question time twice already when prime minister questions twice uh it's been it's got a lot of news traction and then from there we have also now a load of other ambassadors up and down the country that are able to pick up and take on the baton so it's not just me it i was very conscious of suddenly turning into looking like the mick lynch of hospitality which is great i mean i don't get me wrong i love mick lynch i think he's great but i don't want to be that guy it's not because it loses traction then and it loses the reality of um we need people to understand it is about their pub just around the corner from them you know that's that that's who we're trying to save and that's who needs that support so regional supporters and regional ambassadors are now happening up and down the country as well