Tom Kerridge has warned that the government’s tax hikes will have a “catastrophic” impact on many hospitality firms in the new year.
The celebrity chef, who was among 120 business leaders to sign a letter in support of Labour ahead of the General Election, said there was a lot of “business frustration” at the government after the Budget.
“There will be a huge amount of closures,” he warned on Sky News last night.
“We’ve already got high-profile names and Michelin-star restaurants that have decided to shut their doors. And when that starts to happen, it does begin to filter down,” he said.
Kerridge estimated that businesses will have to pay out an extra £800-850 more per employee per year due to the hike to employers’ national insurance, which was “an awful lot of money” for many smaller firms.
Many firms in the retail and hospitality sector have come out against the tax hike, warning about the potential impact it will have on the economy.
Last month, over 200 of the UK’s biggest hospitality businesses signed a letter to the Chancellor warning that the tax hike will force many to cut jobs or slash investment budgets.
Andrew Higginson, chair of the British Retail Consortium, has also warned that the jump in costs will be “too much for the (retail) industry to bear”.
Analysis from Deutsche Bank suggests that around 100,000 jobs could be lost as a result of the national insurance hike.
Kerridge maintained that he was still a Labour supporter, suggesting they were the right party to fix the country’s “broken infrastructure”.
“But I do feel that the answer at the minute is not by punishing or making life harder for small businesses,” he added.