While everyone agonises about the health service, Belfast traffic and whether they can afford to pay three quid at Belfast City Airport, an industry we all know and love is dying a painful death.
Hospitality is the whipping boy of government. It was the whipping boy during Covid, when we all had to stay at home to protect the NHS. And it’s been the whipping boy ever since. During the so-called cost of living crisis, hospitality paid a bigger price than most for its raw materials.
And, thanks to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, hospitality has been given a punishment beating by the recent budget measures (more of which later). Staff costs – just to add to everything else – have gone through the roof of the pub, restaurant or hotel.
Businesses are having their lights put out at an alarming rate. On a very local level, here in Bangor, we’ve lost a popular restaurant and one of our livelier music pubs since we all raised a glass of cheap fizz on New Year’s Eve. It’s only when pubs and restaurants close that you realise what’s being taken away from you.
If there’s one small thing that would help, it would be to lower the punitive 20% VAT rate for hospitality businesses here in Northern Ireland. That was brought into sharp focus this week when the incoming Irish Government signalled its intent to lower the VAT rate for food-based hospitality to 9%. The idea? To give a shot in the arm to the Irish hospitality sector.
That means that, in a few months time, pubs in Donegal will have another edge over their counterparts in Derry, and Newry’s hostelries will be outpaced by those across the border.
Cue Colin Neill of Hospitality Ulster.
“The time for action on Northern Ireland’s hospitality VAT rate has long since passed. The UK Government must stop ignoring the crisis in our industry, recognise the special circumstances under which we operate and act accordingly. The Northern Ireland Executive must represent our case to Westminster and ensure that the playing field on the island of Ireland is evened out.
“Hospitality is the cornerstone of our tourism offering, with the sector accounting for four in five tourism jobs. The island is marketed as one tourism destination, yet two widely disparate VAT rates will now be in operation on the island. With the possibility of the introduction of an ETA scheme on the border, Northern Ireland businesses are operating at a significant disadvantage compared to their southern counterparts.”
And that, of course, is on top of the existing challenges facing businesses – increased product costs, increased staff costs and a Chancellor and local Executive who don’t give a toss.
Talk Is Cheap
As ever, it’s good to see our politicians hauling themselves back from another lengthy break to face the music, or rather dodge the music, up at Stormont.
And what’s on their minds as they reluctantly get back up to what passes for operating speed amongst our MLAs? Why, the Health Service, of course. Certainly not hospitality and its issues.
The Alliance Party this week suggested a motion expressing ‘grave concern’ at the pressures facing the ambulance service. During a debate on ambulance waiting times, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt accepted that there was “an urgent need for reform”. Yes, Mike, we know that.
Off the point, while some struggled to get any kind of ambulance over the post-New Year period, wasn’t it good to see NI Ambulance Service chief Michael Bloomfield being awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List?
According to the BBC NI website, it has been a “challenging fortnight for emergency departments in Northern Ireland.” We knew that too.
To be fair to Michelle O’Neill, she didn’t hold back on the language, describing the situation as “dire and diabolical”. She went on to add that the “public want to hear what we’re going to do about it.” And she’d be correct in that assumption. But will they?
Back at the coalface, our latest Health Minister is good with words, and he accepts that reform is needed, but that’s about as far as it goes. Like his predecessors, he lacks the bravery to introduce sweeping changes that might not please everyone.
What he did so was to extend free flu vaccines to the 50-64 age group, bringing in those too mean to have paid for a jab in their local branch of Boots, and announce that he plans to increase the wages of social care workers. Ah, spending just a little more money, that’ll be the answer then.
During the crisis last week, the Department of Health said longer-term solutions to the problems required sustained investment and reform. And that, of course, is true. But a start would be good.
Controversial it might be, but maybe Nigel Farage has a point. Should we bring in charges for some services and private sector partnerships?
We can hear the howls of protest already.
Setting The Record Straight
We were, in retrospect, a little bit harsh in last week’s blog on a couple of fronts. Sure, it was the first business week of January, a natural time to be grumpy.
First up, California. We mocked the fact that local media saw fit to tell us that Stephen Nolan hadn’t come to any harm during the wildfires that have swept the Los Angeles area.
What perhaps wasn’t clear last week was the extent of the disaster. It’s clearly no laughing matter. Still, we’re glad that the big man survived without smoke damage and will no doubt be heading back soon to the much colder climes of Northern Ireland, leaving behind his American buddies.
On the radio, Mark Simpson has been standing in and, to be clear, the programme is a whole lot better for it. Mark, like any real journalist, interviews people. He doesn’t bellow at them, and he doesn’t try to spread his ego all over the show. It’s all much more balanced and easier to listen to.
So, while last week’s nonsense with Alan Stout and others about potential mask wearing and avoiding any risk to help the NHS was particularly galling, the content on the show hasn’t been that bad, even though it’s dominated by our legions of home-grown moaners, as it always is.
Give us something good, like Belfast’s Grand Central Station, and we’ll still moan about it.
Still, onwards and upwards.
Rachel From Accounts
There’s nothing like a good nickname that sticks and we’re a big fan of the ‘Rachel From Accounts’ tag that’s been given to Rachel Reeves. After her October budget, the Chancellor deserves all the stick she is given.
A photo of her did the rounds from the House of Commons last week. There she was perched beside Keir Starmer with pronounced bags under her eyes and looking less than chipper. Haunted might be a good description. And well she might be.
Having spent weeks and months lambasting the Tories for having left her with a multi-billion black hole in the public finances, she’s managed in her relatively short tenure to make things a whole lot worse.
We’ve even reached the stage where, a bit like a football manager, everyone is speculating on if and when she’ll be sacked by a Prime Minister who won’t hesitate to get ruthless if it helps to save his own skin. Not my fault, mate.
The football analogy can be stretched a bit further. Just this week, poor old Rachel From Accounts was given Sir Keir’s full backing. Anyone with an interest in football will know that that’s often the kiss of death.
If she does fall on her sword, or is pushed overboard by Starmer, she’ll be following in the footsteps of the wonderfully named Tulip Siddiq, the former anti-corruption minister who found herself embroiled in allegations of, ermm, corruption.
A bit like the hapless Rachel (pity she hadn’t been called Rose), Tulip was given the also given backing of Sir Starmer. Look where it got her.
The Labour Government’s honeymoon is but a distant memory.
Pick Me Up & Set Me Down
The furore of pick-up charges at Belfast City Airport shows that we’re in the traditional January silly season for news. It’s all a bit of nonsense, isn’t it?
The facts are fairly simple. When you drive into the airport to pick someone up or drop them off, as one does occasionally, signs tell you that there are designated drop-off area and that you’ll be charged a couple of quid for using them. If you try to avoid the charge by dropping off or picking up elsewhere, you run the risk of a hefty fine. It’s all there in black and white.
But, of course, as far as airports are concerned, some people’s natural cheapness kicks in. Some of them will do anything to avoid having to bung a few pound coins into the machine or swipe their card for the pleasure of being re-united with their beloved wife or husband. Or someone else’s wife or husband.
So they’ll meander around the airport’s roads, get in everyone’s way, make a nuisance of themselves and happily run the risk of a fine. All fine and dandy shen you’re doing the dodging. Until the notice of the fine drops through the letterbox. Then it’s time to pick up the phone to The Nolan Show and cry your little lamps out.
Read the signs, folks. And pay the money.
Be My Baby
It’s about time we returned with some news from the courts, and this week’s instalment comes from the exalted surroundings of the Court of Appeal, Northern Ireland’s highest court.
Apparently, and wait for this, gay male couples seeking publicly-funded fertility treatment in Northern Ireland face unjustified barriers based on their gender and sexual orientation, the Court was told this week.
Counsel for two men denied access to IVF for help starting a family claimed that they have suffered unlawful discrimination.
“Everything is being done to assist women to reproduce, and men are not treated in the same way,” one of the lawyers in the case is reported to have said.
Erm, no. Indeed.