{"id":243591,"date":"2023-12-12T01:40:21","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T01:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/?p=243591"},"modified":"2023-12-12T01:40:21","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T01:40:21","slug":"hospitality-bosses-brand-the-covid-inquiry-a-farce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/world-news\/hospitality-bosses-brand-the-covid-inquiry-a-farce\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospitality bosses brand the Covid Inquiry a &apos;farce&apos;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1> Hospitality bosses brand the Covid Inquiry a &#8216;farce&#8217; as they say Rishi Sunak&#8217;s Eat Out To Help Out scheme saved pubs and restaurants from &#8216;oblivion&#8217;<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>READ: More than half of people think Rishi&#8217;s Eat Out to Help Out was a &#8216;bad idea&#8217;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hospitality bosses branded the Covid Inquiry a &#8216;farce&#8217; yesterday for focusing on the Eat Out to Help Out scheme rather than on &#8216;catastrophic&#8217; lockdowns.<\/p>\n<p>Luke Johnson, part owner of Gail&#8217;s bakery and the former boss of Pizza Express, argued that the hearing should look into whether they were &#8216;proportionate&#8217; or &#8216;worth it&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>And he said the Eat Out scheme \u2013 which Rishi Sunak was grilled about at his appearance at the inquiry \u2013 saved pubs and restaurants from &#8216;oblivion&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Johnson&#8217;s comments came amid growing concern that the hearing has what former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption described as a &#8216;built-in bias in favour of lockdowns&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The Eat Out scheme, which offered up to \u00a310 per person off meals in bars and restaurants in August 2020, has proved particularly controversial, with claims it fuelled a rise in Covid cases.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/11\/22\/78843203-12852327-Rishi_Sunak_was_grilled_about_the_Eat_Out_scheme_at_his_appearan-a-1_1702334368967.jpg\" height=\"739\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Rishi Sunak was grilled about the\u00a0Eat Out scheme at his appearance at the inquiry<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/11\/22\/78843389-12852327-Luke_Johnson_part_owner_of_Gail_s_bakery_and_the_former_boss_of_-a-4_1702335420701.jpg\" height=\"500\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Luke Johnson, part owner of Gail&#8217;s bakery and the former boss of Pizza Express, argued that the hearing should look into whether they were &#8216;proportionate&#8217; or &#8216;worth it&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>But hospitality chiefs said the inquiry should be examining the overall damage caused by lockdowns, rather than focusing on the scheme. Speaking to BBC Radio 4&#8217;s Today programme, Mr Johnson said the inquiry was a &#8216;waste&#8217; of million of pounds of taxpayers&#8217; money.<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8216;I think the whole thing is a farce. They are asking the wrong questions. They are not asking the key questions \u2013 which is, was lockdown proportionate and was it worth it?<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think lockdowns were a catastrophe \u2013 the collateral damage was completely ignored. There was never a proper test of whether the benefits were worth the cost.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8216;The hospitality industry is one that employs two million people \u2013 it is one of the largest in the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;And it had been forced to close for many months and many thousands of businesses were close to the edge. They were desperate, facing oblivion.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/12\/11\/22\/78843225-12852327-The_Eat_Out_scheme_which_offered_up_to_10_per_person_off_meals_i-a-3_1702334368973.jpg\" height=\"425\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The Eat Out scheme, which offered up to \u00a310 per person off meals in bars and restaurants in August 2020, has proved particularly controversial, with claims it fuelled a rise in Covid cases<\/p>\n<h3>READ MORE:\u00a0More than half of people think Rishi Sunak&#8217;s Eat Out to Help Out was a &#8216;bad idea&#8217;, new poll shows &#8211; as PM prepares to face claims that the scheme helped spread the virus at the Covid Inquiry<\/h3>\n<p>His thoughts were echoed by Tim Martin, founder of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, who said &#8216;a sensible and speedy analysis of the lessons of the pandemic is clearly now needed&#8217;. He said a campaign of fear from the Government meant &#8216;we ended up with some idiotic policies, with doubtful contributions to health, including curfews, moonshots, rules of six and other pointless soundbites&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Sacha Lord, from the Night Time Industries Association, said: &#8216;We need to shine a light on why hospitality was treated so badly.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to &#8216;ridiculous policy decisions&#8217;, including a 10pm curfew on pubs \u2013 which pushed everyone out of venues at the same time \u2013 and a requirement to have a &#8216;substantial meal&#8217; with alcohol, and the tiered system of restrictions which saw punters flock to nearby cities on packed trains. He said Eat Out &#8216;probably didn&#8217;t work&#8217; and suggested the money could &#8216;have been spent in better places to support us financially&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>However, Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UKHospitality, said: &#8216;At the time, Eat Out to Help Out was an economic boost for the sector when it needed it the most.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Venues were operating with extensive mitigation measures in place, such as Test and Trace, reduced capacity, staff wearing PPE, table service only, no cash payments and one-way systems, to ensure it was as safe as possible for both staff and guests.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12852327\/covid-inquiry-rishi-sunak-eat-help-out.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hospitality bosses brand the Covid Inquiry a &#8216;farce&#8217; as they say Rishi Sunak&#8217;s Eat Out To Help Out scheme saved pubs and restaurants from &#8216;oblivion&#8217; READ: More than half of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hospitality bosses brand the Covid Inquiry a &amp;apos;farce&amp;apos; - lovemainstream.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/world-news\/hospitality-bosses-brand-the-covid-inquiry-a-farce\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hospitality bosses brand the Covid Inquiry a &amp;apos;farce&amp;apos; - lovemainstream.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hospitality bosses brand the Covid Inquiry a &#8216;farce&#8217; 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