Brexit is starting to bite in city
Hospitality industry sees impact
A Stirling hotelier says that Brexit has already had a lasting impact on the local hospitality industry.
Paul Waterson, who owns the Golden Lion Hotel, says that Brexit has already led to ‘uncertainty’ for EU nationals working at the King Street hotel.
The UK will leave the European Union on Friday, January 31, with freedom of movement stopping at the end of this year.
Mr Waterson, formerly chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA), says the impending exit from the common market saw the number of foreign workers at the city hotel drop dramatically.
He said: “There has been a number of different factors at play which have lead to uncertainty. Uncertainty is something businesses don’t like.
“I have lost a lot of good workers over the last two or three years because of the uncertainty.”
He estimates that as many as two in every five hospitality workers are EU nationals and says that Brexit has led to the value of the pound dropping, meaning it is less valuable for EU nationals to come to the UK to work and tourist numbers are also on the decline.
He added: “Because the pound has dropped so much, it means that the exchange rates are not as good when someone from Poland, for example, is sending money back home and less and less people want to come and work here.
“Last year the number of tourists was quite a bit down as well. Buses were maybe ten people short and that’s not Stirling’s problem.”
He estimates that at least 25 per cent of his staff are EU nationals who are stressing over their futures.
With Friday’s deadline looming, Stirling Council says it is “ready for potential changes” and has been making thorough preparations over the past 18 months.
A spokesperson said:“An EU Exit working group, who are fully engaged with contingency planning and risk management across Scotland, has been meeting periodically, along with the council’s Incident Response Team.
“We have also engaged with our EU nationals to show they are valued members of the workforce and to offer and help and support in obtaining settled status, should this be required.”
NHS Forth Valley says that it is ready to respond to any issues which arise. A spokesperson said: “The majority of preparations for the potential impact of Brexit on NHS Scotland are being coordinated nationally and we will continue to work closely with the Scottish Government to monitor and respond to any local issues, as required.”
Stirling’s SNP MP, Alyn Smith says that Friday “is not the end of the matter, but rather the beginning of something much worse for the whole of the UK”.
He added: “Completely ignoring the will of the devolved legislatures has cast the UK into an even deeper constitutional crisis. The Tory government’s refusal to work with others to find a compromised solution has meant that the votes of 62 per cent of Scots – or 68 per cent of people in Stirling – during the EU referendum have been completely ignored.
“Leaving the EU does not ‘get Brexit done’ as the Prime Minister has suggested, but rather begins an 11 month transition period, where the UK Government expects to negotiate a comprehensive trade deal with the EU – the sort of trade agreement which would normally take years to piece together.
“Brexit takes us away from our involvement in a highly successful economic and social partnership – born out of a post-war peace project – within our family of European nations.”
A spokesperson for the Stirling Conservatives said: “The result of a UK-wide referendum result is finally going to be respected. Now we need the SNP to get over themselves and start engaging with the UK Government to ensure every opportunity is taken.
“We are leaving the EU but no one has ever said we should not have a very good, mutually beneficial, relationship with them. Alyn Smith and the SNP want to keep the argument going simply to stoke up their ambition to break up the UK, something 60 per cent of people in Stirling voted against in 2014.”