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BHA welcomes Chancellor’s ‘small glimmer of hope’
The British Hospitality Association has called on Chancellor George Osborne to do more to help the sector following the Budget announcement yesterday.
It says air tax reform and other measures give hospitality businesses a "small glimmer of hope, but not enough".
"Today’s Spring Statement showed some small signs of recognition from the Chancellor on issues like APD, the Apprenticeship Grant and the Annual Investment Allowance, which the BHA welcomes, but there are other more lucrative ways to increase our competitiveness as a nation, for example by funding more improvements to obtaining tourist and business visas and the reduction of tourism VAT," said CEO Ufi Ibrahim.
Meanwhile, his deputy, Martin Couchman, outlined missed policy opportunities.
He said: "Hospitality businesses should be brought back into the Enterprise Investment Scheme to help secure necessary funding for refurbishment of the premises.
“Some of our smaller regional members have told us they have found it difficult to secure bank finance, with the result that necessary refurbishment and improvement of premises cannot take place.
"Another driver of growth which our members would have liked to see is a cut in employer’s NI to create more employment opportunities."
The BHA also expressed concerns about the slow progress of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) supervised review of Interest Rate Swaps and urged a rethink on the exclusion of embedded fixed rate business loans from the FCA supervised review, which were not addressed in yesterday’s announcement.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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