Mike Wood

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The changes to employer national insurance contributions have meant that 774,000 workers, many of them on lower incomes or working part time, are caught in a net that punishes job creation. The cut in business rate relief from 75% to 40% has driven otherwise viable businesses into the red, hitting pubs such as the Green Man in my constituency, which has seen its business rates bills rise from about £140 a month to nearly £350 a month—before a single customer has been served or a single pint pulled. A third of hospitality businesses now operate at a loss. That is not sustainable, and it is not fair. According to UKHospitality, the Government’s measures will cost the sector at least £3.4 billion, including a £1 billion cost from the national insurance contribution increases alone. Of course, those tax rises came in at exactly the same time as the increase in the national living wage, adding even more pressure to small business employers such as the tea room at Ashwood Nurseries, in my constituency, which already operate on tight margins. Let me be clear: no one opposes fair pay. I am proud that the previous Government introduced the national living wage, and increased it to give workers’ incomes a boost. However, if the Government want sustainable wage increases, they cannot also pile on non-wage costs at the same time—and that is before the impact of their employment rights package, which comes into force next year. The data already shows the consequences starkly. The Office for National Statistics confirms that since the October Budget, the hospitality sector has shed 69,000 jobs, even before the latest figures from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. That is 3.2% of all hospitality jobs. To put that in context, the overall economy lost 1.2% of jobs in the same period, so hospitality’s job losses were 266% higher than the national average.