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The CEO of a major hospitality trade body has called for Rachel Reeves to slash business rates and National Insurance contributions after she warned there would be “blood on the high street” without help. CEO of UKHospitality Kate Nicolls told The Express that the Chancellor “urgently” needs to inject the so much-needed confidence into the economy on Budget day, November 26.

Ms Nicolls said that currently, two hospitality businesses a day are closing their doors for good, while two-thirds of the industry have had to cut staff headcounts. Meanwhile, a third of hospitality firms are reducing operating hours due to staffing shortages.

“Hospitality, retail, leisure is the driver for the economy and has been for many years but it’s actually going backwards at the moment,” Ms Nicolls said.

For her, high business rates are part of the problem and has called for Reeves to keep last year’s promise for the “maximum discount on business rates possible.”

In last year’s October budget the Chancellor announced that small businesses would see business rates discounts while bigger businesses would see hikes in the tax. Meanwhile, Ms Nicolls said she is working with many small high street businesses that are “holding on by their fingernails trying to get through to the budget to see if there’s any respite.”

She added: “But they’ve said quite clearly that if the Budget is as dire as it’s been predicted, they will hand their keys back and close the business in January.”

“The business rate discount has to be delivered in full”, Ms Nicolls said, wanting businesses to see a “meaningful reduction” in the amount they are charged. If this is not met, she warned that business closures could double in the coming year, Restaurant Online reported.

Ms Nicolls then took aim at employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs), which saw an increase in last year’s Budget from 13.8% to 15%.

She said: “We want to see a change in NICs to incentivise businesses to take people who are unemployed, long term sick and long term disabled.”

She also wanted to extend the one-year NICs holiday for veterans.

This change would “get the welfare bill down and get people back into the decency and dignity of work,” Ms Nicolls said.

At a private industry dinner, Ms Nicolls said “further blood will run on the high street” if the Chancellor does not “back hospitality in the budget” and “crucify” the industry “again, as they did in the last budget”, Restaurant Online reported.

When asked what she meant by these strong words, Ms Nicolls said: “It means they have no strategy, they’re ignoring the everyday economy. Without a comprehensive plan of action and without a clear strategy for support for high street businesses then we will see more closures and more job losses.”

She added: “We are already at the closures and job loss levels that we saw during Covid. Unless we get action going into the New Year, with January, February and March being the toughest trading months on the high street, you will see more business failures.”

Unemployment in England reached 5% this week, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reported, the same level recorded during lockdown.

“We’ve got lots of anecdotal examples where successful businesses that would otherwise be profitable are having to make staff redundant, are having to close and sell sites,” Ms Nicolls said.