Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Kickstart scheme in the hospitality sector.

As of 11^th October, over 23,200 jobs have been made available in the hospitality and food sector through the Kickstart Scheme, including over 6,900 started. We are exploring how we can continue to support these sectors, whilst recognising that Kickstart jobs must be additional, not displacing existing opportunities within the wider labour market.

The Department for Work and Pensions has developed an extensive offer to support the hospitality sector, along with at least £25 billion in COVID-19-related economic support that has already been provided by the UK Government to the tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors since March 2020. In addition to having access to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, loan guarantees and protection from commercial rent eviction and debt forfeitures, hospitality businesses also had access to grants, business rates relief, a VAT cut on food and non-alcoholic beverages to 5% and the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme. DWP has also provided additional support to help businesses reopen, with an additional £5bn in the form of one-off Restart Grants of up to £18,000.

The government has also recently published its long-term plans to support the hospitality sector in the Hospitality Strategy, available here: Hospitality strategy: reopening, recovery, resilience - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).