UKHospitality launches alliance to secure government support for sector suppliers: UKHospitality has launched a new lobbying group to push for government support to help hospitality supplier businesses. The Supplier Alliance will provide “a voice for those businesses within the hospitality sector that have been hit just as hard as venues by the coronavirus crisis”. The group, which draws on UKHospitality’s extensive supplier membership base alongside non-members, will push for government support for suppliers in line with operators. This will ensure any ongoing measures in support of hospitality includes the entire business network. UkHospitality said these businesses are intrinsic to the functioning of the hospitality sector, will be critical to a successful restart and, will face severe hardship should government support be discontinued while the hospitality sector is still in the early stages of reopening. The Supplier Alliance has been launched simultaneously with a survey to suppliers to ascertain the scale of the crisis facing supplier businesses and the urgent need for support. The results, once anonymised and collated, will be used to build and strengthen the case for government support UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “The effect of the covid-19 crisis has been acutely felt by hospitality businesses, and the impact is felt right across the sector. There are many associated businesses which rely on the sector for their livelihood and these have been hammered just as hard. Supplier businesses within hospitality are just as wide-ranging, varied and dynamic as the venues themselves. Our sector supports businesses as disparate as EPOS companies, licensing solicitors or even linen specialists. The shutdown of the hospitality sector has meant that all these businesses have been forced into hibernation as well. The government has recognised the damage that pubs, restaurants, hotels, bars and nightclubs have suffered and has acted quickly and decisively to provide support and save jobs. There are many businesses integral to the hospitality sector, facing the same existential crisis and they need the government’s support now.”

Boris Johnson – I’m optimistic we can go faster with hospitality: Prime minister Boris Johnson has said he is “more optimistic” the government might be able to move faster when it comes to hospitality. Replying to a question on hospitality during today’s (Wednesday, 27 May) Liaison Committee meeting, Johnson said: “On hospitality, we are trying to go as fast as we can, it is very difficult to bring forward hospitality measures in a way that involves social distancing, but I am much more optimistic about that than I was and I think we may be able to do things faster than I previously thought.” During the meeting, the science and technology chair Greg Clark asked why the UK has a policy of recommending two-metre distancing while the World Health Organisation recommends one-metre. The prime minister replied the advice from scientific advisers on the Sage group said there remains a considerable reduction in risk at two metres. Clark asked if Johnson would consider reducing it soon to allow shops and workplaces to function. The prime minister said he hoped to reduce that distance in the future.