Kerrin MacPhie, chief executive of the Meetings Industry Association, said: “With businesses being charged 20% VAT and no cap on energy prices, this will have a dramatic impact on our industry and needs to be addressed immediately.”
MacPhie also highlighted the 5% VAT paid on energy by those that now work at home.
Kate Nicholls, UKHospitality chief executive, said the organisation was striving to save the hospitality industry, “which is experiencing crushing cost rises”.
She said: “The new government must act quickly and decisively to address the soaring energy bills that are facing consumers and businesses.
"With the right package of support – including a reduction in the headline rate of VAT for the sector to 12.5%, a business rates holiday, the deferral of all environmental levies, the reinstatement of a HMRC Time to Pay scheme and the reintroduction of a trade credit insurance scheme for energy – the sector will be well placed to aid growth through generating jobs and local investment.”
She added: “Pre-pandemic, our industry spent £10 billion a year in high street regeneration and employed 3.2 million people but with energy bills for hospitality businesses rising 300% on average – and as high as 750% in some cases – we desperately need a package of support put in place if we are to be able to play our part in the UK’s economic recovery and growth.”
Business Travel Association chair Clive Wratten said: “This is a grave time for our country, and we urge the prime minister to be innovative in tackling the challenges ahead. Work with industries such as travel, transport and hospitality to get Britain thriving again.”
However, the TSSA union said a change of government, not just a change of leader, was needed. TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: “Truss has offered nothing to date which suggest she, or her party, have a clue about how to deal with soaring energy prices, inflation and much more, including giving our members a pay rise which stops them becoming poorer.
“The Conservative leadership contest has been a charade about which candidate is the best Thatcherite. At a time when the British people need serious government, rather than parlour games, this has been a wasted summer of ineptitude and inaction.”
