NTIA Backs Andy Burnham for PM in Push for Hospitality VAT Cut

Britain’s night-time economy has rarely been short of warnings about its own mortality. What is new is the willingness of its trade body to name a politician it believes can do something about it.

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has publicly backed Andy Burnham’s call for a cut to VAT across hospitality and the wider night-time economy, arguing that the sector cannot withstand three more years of rising taxation, fragile consumer confidence and what it describes as a failure of political will. It is an unusually pointed intervention from an organisation that is careful to stress it remains apolitical, and it lands at a moment when the campaign to lower hospitality’s tax burden has acquired real momentum.

The association’s central contention is straightforward. Nightclubs, bars, pubs, restaurants, live music venues, festivals, event organisers and cultural institutions are being squeezed simultaneously by VAT, employer National Insurance contributions, business rates and stubbornly high energy costs. The result, the NTIA argues, has been a steady attrition of venues, cancelled events and retreating investment across what it calls one of the country’s most important cultural and employment sectors. The trade body has long called for a VAT cut to halt a string of nightclub closures, and its language has hardened as the closures have continued.

Why Burnham, and why now? The Greater Manchester mayor put himself at the centre of the debate at this year’s Night Time Economy Summit in Liverpool, where, speaking alongside former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, he told an audience of operators and national media that he would “argue for a VAT rate more consistent with what you find in Europe because of the social value that your businesses bring to places and towns.” For an industry that has spent years lobbying with little to show for it, a senior political figure putting VAT explicitly on the table was a moment worth seizing.

Michael Kill, chief executive of the NTIA, framed the endorsement as a matter of survival rather than party allegiance. “We are apolitical as an organisation, but we are not neutral when it comes to the survival of our industry,” he said. “The hospitality and night-time economy sectors are under more pressure than at any point in recent memory. Businesses are being crippled by taxation at a time when margins have been eroded, consumer confidence remains fragile and operating costs continue to rise.”

Kill was blunt about the choice he believes operators now face. “The reality is that our industry cannot survive three more years of the current approach. Businesses are closing, investment is drying up and confidence has collapsed,” he said. “What many operators now see is a stark choice: three more years of economic uncertainty and additional pressure on already struggling businesses, or a change in leadership and direction that finally recognises the value of hospitality, nightlife, festivals, events and culture to the UK economy.”

His sharpest warning concerned the prospect of further tax rises. “What worries us most is that, while businesses are already struggling under unprecedented pressure, there are now discussions about increasing taxes even further. For many operators, there is simply nothing left to give.” Hospitality and nightlife, he argued, should be treated as economic drivers and major employers rather than “a convenient source of revenue.”

The NTIA’s intervention does not exist in a vacuum. The wider trade has coalesced around the #VATsTheProblem campaign, fronted by chef and publican Tom Kerridge and backed by UKHospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association and others, which is pressing for a reduction in hospitality VAT from 20 per cent. The accompanying petition passed 200,000 signatures within days of launching, a measure of how raw the issue has become. Sentiment was hardly improved by the summer’s “Great British Summer Savings” package, which cut VAT to 5 per cent on family attractions but conspicuously snubbed the night-time economy, a slight the NTIA has not forgotten.

The case for relief rests on a simple proposition: that a lower VAT rate would protect jobs, stimulate consumer spending and safeguard the venues, festivals and cultural spaces that anchor town and city centres. The case against — that the Treasury can ill afford to forgo the revenue when the public finances are stretched — is equally familiar, and it is the argument the sector has run up against for the better part of a decade.

For now, the NTIA is betting that one of the few politicians willing to engage on its terms also happens to be among the most plausible future occupants of Downing Street. Burnham is not in government, and three years of this Parliament remain. But in backing him so openly, the association has made a calculated wager that a change of direction is more likely to come from championing an outside contender than from continued, unrewarded loyalty to the status quo. Whether that bet pays off will depend less on the strength of the industry’s case, which is well rehearsed, than on the political arithmetic of the next three years.

Jamie Young

Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.

When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.