GRAB A £10 RISHI DISHI
■ EAT OUT TO HELP OUT VOUCHERS ARE UNVEILED ■ STAMP DUTY THRESHOLD RAISED TO £500,000 ■ VAT IS CUT TO 5% FOR HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY ■ £1,000 SAVE-A-JOB BONUS IN £30bn GIVEAWAY
DINERS can enjoy up to £10 a head off their bills in restaurants, cafes and pubs next month – thanks to Rishi Sunak.
The chancellor urged Britain to ‘eat out to help out’ as he served up a £30billion spending package in his ‘coronavirus budget’.
The 50 per cent discount – up to a maximum of a tenner – will apply on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout August. It covers food and soft drinks but not alcohol.
Eateries that want to take part will have to register online. They will be able to claim the money back from the government. ‘This has never been tried in the UK before but we need to be creative,’ Mr Sunak told MPs. ‘They need our support and, with this measure, we can all eat out to help out. I know people are cautious about going out but, if we follow the guidance, we can all enjoy summer safely.’
In a further boost to the hospitality and tourism sector, the chancellor – who later visited the Wagamama restaurant in London’s Royal Festival Hall – cut
VAT from 20 per cent to five per cent on meals, accommodation and attractions. Kate Nicholls, of UK Hospitality, described the moves as a ‘huge bonus’. She added: ‘We hope the public sees we are ready to welcome them back safely. The future of many businesses and jobs depends on it.’
In a raft of measures aimed at getting the economy going and saving jobs, Mr Sunak also suspended stamp duty on homes under £500,000 and promised companies £1,000 bonuses for every furloughed
employee who returns to work. But he warned that ‘significant job losses’ were inevitable and refused demands to extend furloughing beyond October.
‘It is in no one’s long term interests for the scheme to continue forever, least of all those trapped in a job that can only exist because of a government subsidy,’ he insisted.
Mr Sunak announced a £2billion ‘kickstart scheme’ which will subsidise the wages of anyone under-25 who is given a job and trained for six months. Companies will also be paid up to £2,000 for every apprentice they take on.
And he promised a ‘green recovery’ with grants of up to £10,000 to make 650,000 homes more energy efficient.
The spending spree comes on top of the £160billion already spent on supporting the economy since March 11.
But there was anger from retailers at the lack of help for the high street, where 1.6million workers were on furlough last month. ‘There needs to be thought given to how consumer demand is stimulated on the high street or many businesses will close and jobs will be lost,’ Andrew Goodacre, of the British Independent Retailers Association, said.
Len McCluskey, of the Unite union, warned that redundancy notices are ‘already flying around like confetti’.
And Labour mocked the measures as more ‘meal deal, than new deal’.
‘Today, Britain should have had a Back to Work Budget,’ said shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds. ‘Instead we got this summer statement with many of the big decisions put off until later.’