Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, has used a debate in Parliament to highlight the challenges faced by local hospitality and retail businesses due to Labour’s Autumn Budget.

In the House of Commons, Caroline spoke about how a toxic mix of business rate rises and the prospect of new legislation that aims to reduce flexibility in the labour market was causing concern among retail, leisure and hospitality businesses like pubs in the Gosport Constituency.

Caroline highlighted new statistics from UK Hospitality which claim that the average hospitality venue in Gosport will pay almost £20,000 more in business rates over the next 3 years. Labour’s Employment Rights Bill is also set to place huge new admin costs on employers when recruiting on zero hours contracts, dissuading employers from offering them, reducing workforce flexibility and making zero-hour workers, such as students, worse off.

Her comments came during a debate tabled by the Conservatives on seasonal working, in the wake of statistics showing that unemployment had increased in every month that Labour had been in government. Pubs rely on seasonal workers like students during busy periods such as Christmas, but Caroline said that Labour’s policies were disincentivising. She said that seasonal work was useful for getting young people into the habit of work and teaching them to save money. Yet youth unemployment is up 31% in the Gosport constituency.

Responding to a question from a Labour MP, Caroline pointed out that there were increasingly few jobs for young people. Since the Budget over 1,100 pubs and restaurants have closed, equivalent to two per day, causing 80,000 people to lose their jobs. She quoted a Gosport publican who had said that “I can guarantee we will not be open this time next year if things continue. The Labour government is doing nothing to help the industry.”

Speaking in the debate, Caroline said: “National Insurance Contribution rises hit my constituents disproportionately due to the high proportion of people working in caring, leisure and other service occupations, over three times the national average.

“The Budget this year confirmed that under Labour, our High Streets were just an afterthought.

“That’s why I welcome the Shadow Chancellor’s plans to introduce a permanent 100 per cent business rates relief for the Retail, Leisure and Hospitality sector.”