‘Knee-jerk’ curbs forced 30k firms to limit trading
NEARLY 30,000 companies stopped fully trading after Nicola Sturgeon imposed a series of new Covid curbs in the run-up to Christmas.
Controversial measures to tackle the Omicron variant – including capacity limits on events, physical distancing in indoor businesses and table service in pubs – led many firms to scale back their operations.
The worst-hit sector was hospitality, with more than a third of firms stopping trading in the wake of the curbs. It comes amid growing calls for the removal of remaining restrictions in Scotland, including guidance urging people to work from home, mandatory wearing of face masks in indoor public places and schools, and vaccine passports.
Liz Cameron, chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said: ‘With work from home guidance being dropped in England this week and with confirmation that vaccine passports will be dropped from Januthan ary 27, there is anxiety from business at the prospect of lagging behind England – which places Scottish businesses at a great disadvantage.
‘We urge the Scottish Government to enable businesses to trade without barriers by removing remaining trading restrictions. Specifically, employers and employees need to see a clear removal of the work from home guidance to give a much-needed boost to employee morale and choice, as well as boosting business activity in our town and city centres.
‘We also call for mandatory vaccine passports for nightclubs and other large events to be removed.’
The figures, contained in the latest Business Insights and Conditions Survey, show that the proportion of companies which say they are fully trading has fallen steeply since Omicron restrictions were introduced, from 96.1 per cent in the period from November 29-December 12 to 88.2 per cent in the period from December 29-January 9.
Based on Government figures showing there are 344,505 registered firms in Scotland, this indicates that more 27,000 businesses stopped fully trading. Some 9.6 per cent of firms said they were ‘partially trading’ at the turn of the year, while 1.7 per cent had paused trading. Just 60.1 per cent of firms in the ‘accommodation and food services’ sector said they were fully trading in the first week of this year, compared to 91.1 per cent of firms one month earlier.
Stephen Montgomery, spokesman for the Scottish Hospitality Group, said: ‘It is good that the Scottish Government now understand the devastation that restrictions have caused, and it is no surprise to me that over a third of [hospitality] businesses aren’t trading fully.
‘But it doesn’t give any solace to the business operators or the staff employed in the sector, who went the month of December without any support after spending months planning for Christmas and New Year only to have the rug pulled from under them at the vital moment.’
Scottish Tory Covid recovery spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘Many businesses were relying on healthy festive trading for their survival after two years of hardships, but the SNP’s knee-jerk return to severe Covid restrictions left them unable to continue working at full capacity.
‘The UK Government provided the SNP with over £400million to get immediate support to these businesses over the Christmas period, yet three weeks into January and many have yet to see a single penny.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We have announced a £375million support package for businesses impacted by the measures introduced to control the spread of the Omicron variant and payments are now being made.’
‘Rug pulled from under them’