Landlord William Sitwell has said a proposed ban on zero hours contracts could be “absolutely disastrous” to the already struggling hospitality industry.

Speaking on GB News he said: “We’re lucky enough at the White Hart that young kids, who I’m particularly proud of, have literally walked up the street, knocked on the door, and asked for work, and we’ve been training them, and that’s fantastic.

“It is more expensive to hire people these days because of the increase in employers’ national insurance, because of the increase in the minimum wage, it makes it more expensive for us to employ young people.

“There are the mooted changes in zero hours, which I find quite strange because Andy Burnham says the cavalry are coming. If they reform zero hours contracts, it will be a charge of the Light Brigade. It could be absolutely disastrous.

“In hospitality we completely depend upon flexibility, even to the hour. I mean, we might have an empty dining room through no fault of our own because of a downpour or a heatwave, and you need to be able to sometimes say to colleagues, you need to go home now.

“That doesn’t mean that you’re a terrible employer, because you a great many employers are decent people who return the favour by giving them the number of hours that they need.

“So there’s a threat of inflexibility into the system that would really damage pubs.

“VAT rates are quite high, which obviously stop people from coming out and spending money. Once you open a small business, you realise this monster that’s called the HMRC gateway, which is basically a pathway to hell.

“There are so many things, from red tape to the cost of employing people, that does make it hard to find and retain good people.

“There still is the space for a wet pub but it’s much harder to make money. And one of the reasons why pubs over the years have done food is because obviously, you can get people to stay longer. You can create, you can find more space for margins and so on.

“Having rooms, of course, is a huge help. We have 16 bedrooms. If you’ve got 32 guests staying, that’s a full dining room. So, there are unique challenges within the pub business.

“But look for example at the increase that Rachel Reeves put on business rates. Andy Burnham talks about a decrease.

“Across the summer [Andy Burnham’s] announced this sort of drip feed of policy to own the social media space, and one of those things has been that he will come to the rescue and reduce business rates by 20% without mentioning that Rachel Reeves put business rates up by 79% on average across the country.

“So it’s a 20% reduction in rates for pubs. What about restaurants? Why hotels? I mean, why single out the pub?”