Hospitality gets a hand as Rishi Sunak plays a dangerous game of dice with Covid

Grants of up to £6,000 per venue have been offered, writes James Moore, but how far will that go as people steer clear of going out for fear of Omicron?

Grants have been available as the public locks down because of Omicron (EPA)

It might be just me, but I feel that some of the gloss is starting to come off Rishi Sunak.

Back from his sojourn in California, the chancellor has put his hand in his pocket and come up with some cash for businesses in a hospitality sector left reeling by Britain’s great cancellation.

The headline numbers – a £1bn package of support with grants of up to £6,000 per venue to be distributed to eligible businesses through local authorities – would have looked a lot better had this come earlier.

The cries for help were being heard last week when Sunak was in Silicon Valley (he may have missed the Treasury’s Christmas do, but I’m sure big tech did him proud).

Had he been around to hear them, had he acted with more speed, he would have looked in control of events.

As it is, he and his colleagues seem perpetually at their mercy, with the good ship Britannia springing holes left right and centre. With this package – there’s something for the arts in there as well – he’s found a temporary plug. Whether it holds is open to question.

Sure, the money will be welcomed by affected businesses as they ride the current viral wave. It’s significant that the grants are being offered while they are being allowed to trade, making this a pandemic-era first.

But critics say they don’t go far enough, even with the government subsidising sick pay and the existing business rate and VAT concessions that will remain in force until spring.

They may have a point. How far is six grand going to go at a pub or a restaurant that’s losing 40 per cent-plus of its takings at the busiest time of year?

The government is currently resisting calls for a fresh lockdown, in part because it’s scared of its backbenchers, in part because it’s worried about the potential economic impact.

But ministers are out of step with large parts of the public. People are locking themselves down, which is why the hospitality sector is suffering. And no wonder. The government can hardly be trusted as a reliable source of information.

Right now it’s saying that it’s more or less safe enough to party but get your booster and maybe do a lateral flow. Last year, by contrast, it wasn’t – with the exception of people in Whitehall who… well, did they party or did they gather? Or did they hold work meetings? Or did they just stand around flipping the rest of us off? I’m going to go with the last of those.

A depressing feature of the latest announcement is the cynicism Sunak couldn’t help but indulge in as he tried to buff it up

Take this, speaking to the BBC: “The grants that we’ve outlined are comparable to the grants that we provided for hospitality businesses when they were completely closed.”

Now on the face of it, that’s true. But when they were completely closed they didn’t have to worry about staff costs, because they were covered by the furlough. So the chancellor is not comparing like with like there.

The truth of it is that this is a stop-gap measure from a government in a holding pattern. It is desperately hoping, praying, that the booster campaign combined with the immunity Britons have already built up will be enough to keep the latest wave from overwhelming hospitals and creating real chaos.

Maybe it’ll get lucky. Trouble is, the sheer number of cases, and Omicron’s appallingly rapid spread, create a problem of maths. If enough unvaccinated or un-boosted or vulnerable people get hit and end up in intensive care, then the government’s gamble will fail.

The economy will take a bigger hit than it would take now through a little more caution, and maybe a sector-specific furlough. Ditto the public finances. Mr Sunak and his colleagues are basically rolling the dice and hoping that throwing a few quid around will keep the worst at bay. This is no way to run a country.