British hospitality in ‘intensive care’ and ‘burning through £500 million just to remain closed’ in latest lockdown, UKHospitality chief says

UK Hospitality boss Kate Nicholls has revealed that the trade body estimates British pubs, bars and restaurants will burn through a total of around £500 million in cash during the latest month-long lockdown. 

The trade body’s chief executive revealed the figure as she appeared at a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee examining the impact of Covid19 on UK businesses and workers on Tuesday.

She said: "We never got above break-even before a return to national restrictions in September.

"Our businesses going into this national lockdown are in a far less resilient place.

“We estimate that there is about half a billion of cash burn that the businesses are going through in November just to remain closed."

The hospitality veteran labelled the sector as being “in intensive care” in the fourth quarter.

She insisted it is "imperative" lockdown ends on December 2 as planned and businesses are allowed to gain some income in December.

Nicholls explained that most hospitality businesses usually earn around 40% of revenues between Halloween and New Year’s Eve - revenues that will have been devastated this year by November’s month-long lockdown.

She said: “To put it in context, as we came out of 2019 hospitality was the third largest employer in the UK with 3.2 million people. We had £130 billion turnover and were forecast to grow  5% year-on-year and generate one in six new jobs.