UKHospitality CEO: ‘It’s a really hard time to be in hospitality’

UKHospitality CEO Allen Simpson said the government had made a “profound mistake” in its approach to the hospitality sector - which could deal a hammer blow to Labour in the next election.

Simpson described Starmer’s position as prime minister position as “weak, and weaker than it was a year ago”.

As a result, Simpson said UKHospitality was “ignoring the government” and instead appealing to voters to make the case at the ballot box on the extent to which issues such as soaring hospitality job losses and closures matter to them.

“You may not believe any of this, but you’re going to lose your job if you don’t [support hospitality],” Simpson said of the government’s stance on the sector.

Simpson said it was “historically unprecedented to see the level of [job] loss in a single sector” that hospitality, which lost 100,000 jobs between the last two fiscal budgets, has shouldered.

Speaking at the Norther Restaurant & Bar Show 2026 in Manchester, Simpson said: “It’s an incredibly hard time to be in hospitality”. He added that cost pressures such as increased business rates and employer National Insurance contributions meant “really good businesses are full and still cannot turn a profit".

Simpson said that the government’s key error was its underestimation of the value hospitality offers the UK economy when driving external investment.

The CEO of UKHospitality said the questions he was asked most in his role was: "What the hell are the government doing? Is it cock up? Is it conspiracy? Do they know what the impact of the policies are going to be?" 

He added: “All of the evidence shows that the culture and hospitality are more important drivers of where [international corporations] choose to locate than tax.

“We don’t compete on cost as a country [to invest in], we compete on whether global companies can convince their staff to come – we are competing with New York and Paris on quality of life, not cost.”

Simpson believes this miscalculation could cost Labour dearly in its upcoming elections. 

“The fact is, we may not have much time left with this government,” he said, adding that UKHospitality was having productive conversations with Reform, Green Party leader Zach Polanski, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives ahead of upcoming elections.

“We’ve been working very hard to make sure that whoever wins the next election, they’re going in with good policies,” Simpson added.