UK Hospitality boss Kate Nicholls says 200,000 Londoners could ‘lose their jobs this weekend’

At risk: The new Tier 2 restrictions come into force in the capital at midnight tonight
Getty Images
Ailis Brennan16 October 2020

The boss of trade association UK Hospitality has warned that 200,000 Londoners in the industry could “lose their jobs this weekend”.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the organisation’s chief executive Kate Nicholls gave the stark estimation while discussing the new Tier 2 coronavirus restrictions that will come into effect in London from midnight tonight.

Nicholls said that the second tier of restrictions would put a greater financial strain on restaurants and bars than the highest tier, which would see bars close.

“If you go into Level Three, you’re getting support if you’re closed… so actually for businesses in this part of the capital, it would probably be better to be paid to be closed.”

“The pain of Tier Two is that you have no government support, and that’s what we need the government to urgently address, otherwise you are going to have about 200,000 people in central London losing their jobs this weekend.”

Her thoughts were echoed by many across the hospitality industry, as it was projected the new restrictions will cost the capital £10 billion.

The new Tier 2 restrictions mean that people from different households can no longer mix indoors in the capital, including in restaurants and bars. This is expected to have a huge impact on the number of customers visiting hospitality venues while the rules are in force.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the new three-tiered system in the House of Commons today, aiming to tackle the rising number of coronavirus cases across the UK by employing local lockdowns at varied levels of severity.

It was announced yesterday that London would move from a “Medium” Tier 1 set of restrictionsto Tier 2 this weekend.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in