Government needs industry support

By Forbes Mutch

Government adviser Roy Tutty has slammed the UK hospitality industry for not demonstrating enough support for New Labour during its first year in office.

Tutty - who reports to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, but describes himself as "an industry person who has been given the chance to walk the corridors of power" - said that industry had to commit "energy and time" to the opportunities being offered by the Government.

Tutty was making a keynote speech at the Catering Forum, held on board the P&O cruise ship Arcadia last weekend. Delegates from more than 400 hospitality firms and 110 suppliers attended.

Many leaders in the industry did not believe that the Government's hospitality-related initiatives - such as the Millennium Dome, minimum-wage legislation and the Welfare to Work programme - were anything to do with them, said Tutty.

"You don't believe that you need to get involved," he told the audience. "And yet politics and government affects everything you do in your business."

On Labour's first year, he commented: "I say full steam ahead with this Government." He claimed that hospitality had been given "high-profile recognition" and was now "on the radar screen".

He added: "I don't say that all things are rosy in the garden. There is still much legislation to face. But we should ask not what the Government will do for us, but what it is that we will do with them…to assist them to achieve their objectives and, in the long term, assist us to achieve ours."