Waiting staff and tips: is it fair to blame the lack of promised government action on heartless Tories?

Brexit has kicked lots of government plans like this into the long grass

Ministers are still ‘considering options’ on the plans to stop companies from snatching the tips paid to waiting staff (PA)

There’s a very obvious narrative behind The Independent’s story of ministers breaking promises to low paid restaurant and bar staff over tipping: heartless Tories caring nothing for low paid workers.

But is that fair?

Let’s look at the facts. The government in 2016 launched a consultation on plans to stop companies from snatching the tips paid to waiting staff by cards. The response has still not been published despite its closing more than two years ago.

Apparently ministers are still “considering options”.

Rows over tips, and the way employers treat them, seem to blow up every couple of years, which is a sure sign that some legislative action is required.

Most recently, the issue has pushed its way up the news agenda as a result of staff at TGI Fridays staging a series of walkouts.

The chain’s waiting staff say they were told that 40 per cent of the tips they receive via card payment would go to kitchen staff, who, as a rule, already get paid more.

Cooks have been hard for chains to keep hold of. Giving them tips intended for waiting staff – it should be pointed out that the latter share them with similarly low waged assistants and bar staff – would be a means of handing them a pay rise on the cheap and thus persuading more of them to stay put.

But it’s deeply unfair to waiting staff and diners alike.

Given the public support for action (80 per cent or more), you would have thought that the government and the business department would have moved by now.

Making an existing voluntary code of practice mandatory would seem to be a penalty kick, and a handy way to counter the above narrative.

So why hasn’t it happened?

Dare I mention Brexit at this point?

The latter is having the effect of an enraged African bull elephant on government business. It’s gumming up parliament and stomping on or swatting aside any number of pressing issues.

Given its potential impact on business, and the increasing unhappiness of the leaders of the business community, you can see how even an easy win has got kicked into the long grass of Whitehall. The business department rather has its hands full fielding calls from unhappy CEOs right now. They’re increasingly going public, and who, apart from Boris “F- Business” Johnson, would blame them?

Should this, then, be seen as a sin of omission on the part of the government rather than a deliberate attempt to kick low paid workers where the sun doesn’t shine by heartless Tories?

Wait just one moment.

Ask yourself who Brexit, and the madness that has gripped the Conservative government and party to the extent that reports of food being stockpiled have not been denied, is going to hurt the most?

Which group stands to get hit hardest by a lack of food on the shelves inevitably pushing up prices?

Which set of workers will suffer the most if there isn’t anything for them to serve up to diners, or if potential customers react to the chaos by staying home and saving their pennies, especially if the boss of Amazon UK is right, and the outcome of the no deal that looks increasingly likely is civil unrest?

You’ve got it: it’s people like low waged waiting staff.

The government knows this. Its own studies have told it this, and there has been an endless stream of warnings from external agencies.

So the narrative of heartless Tories caring nothing for low paid waiting staff? It holds good whichever way you look at it.