‘Offering a grant of just £1,000 is staggeringly and shamefully out of touch’

Social Media users have reacted angrily to the news that wet-led pubs forced to remain closed under Tier 2 and 3 restrictions will receive a paltry one-off grant payment of £1,000.

Boris Johnson has announced that all wet pubs will be given £1,000 to help them out in what would normally have been their busiest time of the year.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UKHospitality, warned that 90% of venues would be unviable by the new year as a result of the tiers.

‘A one-off payment of £1,000 for pubs forced to close does not even count as a token gesture,’ she said. ‘The Prime Minister himself said that he was asking hospitality to bear a disproportionate burden to allow the reopening of all other parts of the economy and pay for our festive bubbles, but the compensation is derisory.’

The Prime Minister said that all pubs which do not serve food will be given the funding to ‘recognise how hard they have been hit’ by measures designed to stop the spread of coronavirus. Under looming new rules, pubs will be forced to close under tier three – which come into force when England’s lockdown ends tomorrow.

The British Beer and Pub Association has already criticised the amount of support offered. Simon Emeny, the chief executive of brewers Fuller, Smith and Turner, added that the one-off payment will not be enough to save many wet pubs. ‘A thousand pounds really doesn’t really go any way to solving the financial armageddon that many individual and independent operators are going to face,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One. ‘The challenge for wet-led pubs is if they don’t sell food they will find it impossible to operate, but you have still got bills to pay.

‘They have still got to pay potentially rent, insurance costs, national insurance and the apprenticeship levy. That is far more than £1,000.’

Taking to Twitter many people referred to the payment as an ‘insult’ and ‘the end for lots of pubs and people’s livelihoods’.

£1,000 pounds in a one off payment to wet (non food serving) pubs is a total insult. Nowhere near the amount of custom most pubs normally have in the month of December and early January.

— john clark (@ghost36hop9) December 1, 2020

£32.26 is what, one round, maybe? And that's meant to see independent pubs, which have been forced unnecessarily to close, through until January?!? Even by the standards of this Government, offering a grant of just £1,000 is staggeringly and shamefully out of touch. https://t.co/G8wWqGXbeU

— James McAllister (@jamesmca90) December 1, 2020

This is both mystifyingly frugal AND totally insulting. He must know this will be the end for lots of pubs and people’s livelihoods.
“Boris Johnson announces £1,000 payment to 'wet pubs' hit by Covid-19 over Xmas” https://t.co/y60FHD5Ms0 via @MetroUK

— DRINKS MAVEN (@drinksmaven) December 1, 2020

This week last year, we sold £35,000 worth of beer to great British pubs to be drunk by the very great British public. All brewed, delivered, sold and served by great British employees.
This week, we sold 3 cases of beer to 1 pub. Which was a treat for their furloughed staff 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/9EX86Oks10

— Ilkley Brewery (@Ilkleybrewery) November 29, 2020

It comes as the PM looks to avoid a Conservative rebellion over his post-lockdown plan. Labour has said it will abstain on the vote. MPs are due to vote tonight on measures that would put 99% of England’s population into the tough measures of tier two and three.