Tom Kerridge: No good restaurant has ever been run by accountants
No good restaurant or pub has ever been run by accountants, celebrity chef Tom Kerridge told City PM as he pushes for a VAT cut for hospitality firms.
The TV personality and restaurateur has spearheaded lobbying efforts for the government to slash VAT for hospitality companies, a move which he says would offer the struggling industry vital breathing space.
His ‘VAT’s The Problem’ campaign claims that the UK’s hospitality firms should benefit from a similar rate of value-added tax to their competitors in France, Italy and Spain, where pubs, bars and restaurants are charged 10 per cent. But these efforts have been criticised by tax expert Dan Neidle, who said the tax break could cost as much as £12.4bn – which would need to be funded by tax hikes elsewhere.
Kerridge hit back at claims that his campaign for a tax break is fiscally irresponsible. He told City PM: “No successful business has ever been built on the accountant.”
“Businesses are not built on tax experts. Communities don’t operate on tax experts. And that’s not even a pleasant title, that shows you what that sort of person is.
“They’re looking for numbers and they’re looking for issues and a problem, as opposed to growth.”
‘It’s about the survival of your local pub’
Neidle claimed cutting VAT would mainly benefit the large hospitality firms. McDonald’s would save as much as £432m under the changes, while pub owner Mitchells & Butlers and Premier Inn owner Whitbread could gain £246m and £238m respectively.
Kerridge said these conglomerates would take huge sums from a cut to VAT because “they’ve worked really hard to get that point”.
“If you look at Gail’s, that was a small bakery called the Bread Factory that operated selling bread to Michelin star restaurants that has built a business and floated on the high street, [and] and then works very well,” he said.
“Without allowing small businesses to grow, you’re never going to get to that point. So yes, their profit margins will be bigger, but it isn’t about them […] it’s about the survival of your local pub.”
Kerridge, who has appeared on Masterchef and the Saturday Kitchen, runs the country’s only two-Michelin-starred pub, the Hand & Flowers in Marlow, the Buckinghamshire town where he lives.
The TV chef backed incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s bid for the Labour leadership because he had previously indicated support for a cut to VAT for hospitality firms. But Burnham’s team has since refused to confirm whether they would act on Kerridge’s demands, and have instead pledged to cut business rates for small businesses.
Starmer a ‘lovely bloke’
Kerridge, who has hosted Burnham “a few times” at the restaurant he ran in Manchester, said he remains “confident” that the incoming Prime Minister will take his ideas on board.
“There’s always concern that you’ve said one thing and [then] do another; that’s the same with every politician. However, that is what the last guy has done. There have been U-turns, there has been conversation,” he said.
“The new guy coming in, the first thing he wants to do is not do a U-turn. So we’re very confident that we could have an open conversation.”
The government has come under fire over its hikes to business rates, national insurance contributions (NICs) and minimum wages, with industry figures bemoaning a “brutal onslaught” that has put operators under pressure.
Though Keir Starmer is “a lovely bloke,” Kerridge said he is “not 100 per cent sure” that the outgoing Prime Minister understands the hospitality industry.
Kerridge praised business secretary Peter Kyle and culture secretary Lisa Nandy but blamed the Treasury for the woes faced by the UK’s pubs, bars and restaurants.
“I think there has been a disconnect between [the] Treasury and everybody else in the government that has been trying to make things work,” he said.
“Keir Starmer has possibly been sat within the Treasury camp, and I suppose as an analytical [person], a lawyer of that kind of background that comes from it. Processing rather than working with emotion.”