Government help for the Hospitality Industry. Open letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister, 

We are writing to you to request urgent cash injections into the hospitality industry to support our staff. Our industry is worth around £43 billion per annum and employs over 700,000 people throughout its vast supply chain. 

For those that are not in the ‘mainstream’ hospitality industry and work in an office or other setting, that may be seen as support services are not yet receiving any help from the Government. EDGE Venues, is a venue procurement platform and Trinity Event Solutions is a venue finding agency that operates out of offices – therefore we are not eligible for any financial help yet and there will be many more businesses like us, that work in this industry that cannot currently get help.

This is a worrying time as we are being penalised by the Government for working in an office setting. 

We do not want to lay our staff off, but we need cash injections to keep them and so far, the hospitality industry has received very little support from the Government. With the current Employment Laws, a good employer who shies away from zero-hour contracts only has the option of laying their staff off in this current situation. 

If we lay off our staff, they will then need to claim benefits and may get into serious financial problems.

Several of our staff have children to support. They are faced with the daunting prospect of going without basic provisions, such as food, to ensure their children are provided for while they’re on reduced hours or unable to keep their job. Universal Credits and other benefits will only cover up to a certain level, and the delay in getting benefits set up will mean our staff will suffer. Rather than the Government having to pick up the pieces, support our staff through means-tested benefits, long term debt and wade through the considerable administration burden – let us look after our staff. We just need cash now!!

Please do not give us complicated processes to apply through. We do not have the time or the resources, and neither do you. Make it a simple cash payment or access to cash per job-based on an average wage bill for the last four months to help us survive and care for our staff.

Don’t give us Debt give us Grants otherwise we have an incentive to lay people off

Make it simple; it could be a 50:50 split of debt and grants. The money can be controlled and only to be paid into salaries, so you know that the money is going directly to the people who need it. This will release the money to enable us to pay our bills, thus allowing our suppliers to survive. This simple act rolled out across other companies will ensure staff job survival, protection of the economy through our supply chain, and less burden on your Government. 

We are at the front line on week 5 of event cancellations, we cannot wait. This is causing us to make decisions against our wishes, and all we want to do is look after our staff.

Please can the Government step in and help us and make this a reality. We implore you not to stand by and let our staff who are highly skilled and pretty brilliant lose their jobs. We want to contribute to economic growth not be a burden to it. 

I have concluded that if my company receives an injection of £10,000 per employee to ensure a minimum of six months’ work of a 3 day week, I could achieve this in my sector. And I would happily pay my bills on time, supporting the local economy, and pay back £5,000 per employee within 12 months of Virus-free world. 

What I don’t want is small amounts of money that the whole process of achieving creates a distraction to me while I fight to keep my business, my customers, suppliers, and my staff. 

Jacqui Kavanagh, CEO of Trinity EDGE Holdings Ltd

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