Jamie Oliver has launched a scathing attack on the government’s tax treatment of British entrepreneurs, warning that ministers are “bashing” the very people who drive the country’s hospitality sector and risk turning Britain into an economic backwater.
Speaking to Times Radio, the celebrity chef said the cumulative burden of recent fiscal measures was strangling the lives of small operators and would shortly make the UK “less and less important, less and less relevant” as a destination for ambition and entrepreneurship.
“If you just bash the business owners, you’re not going to get anything,” Oliver said. “There is a lack of understanding of the chemistry of a bubbly, vibrant, optimistic, ambitious and cool country called Britain.”
His intervention comes at a particularly difficult time for the hospitality industry, which has suffered three burdensome cost increases in the past year. Higher employers’ social security contributions in conjunction with a greatly reduced contribution threshold have hit operators the hardest when it comes to wages. Added to this are successive increases in the national minimum wage and a higher burden of business taxes, which means that the margins of independent cafes, sandwich shops and neighborhood restaurants have been squeezed to the limit.
Oliver argued that without meaningful incentives for risk-taking, Britain would lose its reputation as a melting pot for new brands and ideas. “There has to be enough fat in the game for people to take risks, and the association with risk and then with innovation, creativity and brands… that can be reinforced and expanded,” he said.
His harshest criticism, however, was of what he called the tax system at scale. The system, he said, makes no meaningful distinction between multinational chains and the corner shop. “What’s interesting is that the tax system and the government don’t see any difference between, say, Domino’s or Starbucks and Linda and Paul down the street running a small, independent sandwich shop.” Smaller operators, he added, were being “squeezed out.”
Oliver knows the crucial aspects of trading better than most. His Italian restaurant chain collapsed in 2019 and just late last year he initiated the revival of the Italian brand Jamie’s through a franchise collaboration with Brava Hospitality Group, the owner of Prezzo.
He is anything but a lonely voice. Earlier this month, John Vincent, co-founder of healthy food chain Leon, accused ministers of “completely destroying the restaurant industry”. Vincent, who bought Leon back from Asda last year before closing 22 sites as part of a restructuring, has become one of the industry’s harshest critics, arguing that the tax burden on restaurants has become unsustainable.
When Leon applied for administration, he told the BBC that the math spoke for itself: “Today, for every pound we receive from the customer, about 36p goes to the state as tax money and about 2p ends up in the hands of the company. That’s why most players report big losses.”
For an industry that has long served as the first rung on the career ladder and a generous employer of young, low-skilled and part-time workers, the warning from two of its best-known figures could hardly be harsher. If the Treasury doesn’t find a way to distinguish between the corporate giants and the family-run independents, Oliver believes Britain’s hospitality industry will be poorer, duller and far less ambitious.
