National Insurance Contributions

At the Budget in October, the Government delivered an increase to the annual tax bill of £3.4 billion to hospitality in 2025.

Increases to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and wages will make it harder for hospitality businesses to support employment and invest in their venues.

We’re calling for the Government to mitigate the impact of NICs changes by introducing measures to protect businesses and team members.

What does the Budget means for hospitality businesses?

Political engagement

Kate Nicholls meeting Rachel Reeves at the Treasury

Meeting with the Treasury and MPs

Kate Nicholls, our Chief Executive, and Allen Simpson, our Deputy Chief Executive, have been in to see Rachel Reeves MP, the Chancellor, and James Murray MP, Exchequer Secretary, to hammer home our messages. We have also made representations at the highest levels of all our key departments.

We also continue to engage with opposition parties. The Shadow Cabinet have used our messaging, research and analysis to highlight the unfairness of the measures for hospitality and the Lib Dems have called for a policy reversal.

We have been working with backbench MPs of all parties to make sure the message is pushed through to the party apparatus.

This has included our Parliamentary reception, communications from members and our ongoing series of constituency visits. We have also used the opportunity of numerous parliamentary debates to brief politicians.

This engagement has led to a series of parliamentary debates which we have worked with parliamentarians to initiate and ensure they are well briefed for.

We have continued this work engaging with Parliamentarians as the NICs Bill goes through Parliament, including our proposal for a delay in the implementation of the government’s proposals to NICs until a full impact assessment has been undertaken was laid as an amendment.

What can I do to support?

We are encouraging everyone to write to their MP to explain the impact of the NICs increase on their business and ask that they raise this with the Treasury.

The more pressure we can put on Government to understand the devastating impact of these measures on hospitality, the more chance we have of getting changes.

Write to your MP here

How have we been campaigning in the media on this issue?

Immediate reaction post-Budget

As soon as the Chancellor sat down, we were one of the first organisation’s raising the alarm about the lowering of the NICs threshold and the impact it would have on hospitality.

Kate appeared live on the BBC’s Budget reaction show, BBC Newsnight and ITV News that evening, and BBC Radio 4 Today the next morning, as well as our reaction being covered by all the national papers.

CEO letter

We galvanised our membership to secure the signatures of more than 200 hospitality bosses in an open letter to the Chancellor about the damage of the changes to employer NICs. Kate gave interviews to BBC News, BBC Radio 4 Today, BBC Wake up to Money, BBC 5 Live and Good Morning Britain, to name a few.

The letter was also covered by every national newspaper, including on the front pages of the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and CityAM.

We wrote to the Chancellor alongside over 200 hospitality leaders warning of the unprecedented damage the rise to employment costs will inflict on the sector.

Since the Budget, we have secured more than 2,700 pieces of total coverage in three months. Around 500 of that has been national coverage – that’s an average of five items or interviews with the national press each day.

Analysis of the impact

The several pieces of analysis we have issued around the additional costs of employment and the number of hospitality workers that will be brought into the NICs threshold for the first time have been covered extensively, including by the Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Guardian and the other main national newspapers.

Increases to employer NICs and wages is hitting hospitality hardest, with a 10% rise in the cost of employment per person 774,000 hospitality workers dragged into new NICs threshold

Continuous campaigning

Highlighting the impact the lowering of the threshold will have on businesses and pushing our asks of Government has been our campaigning focus since the Budget.

A selection of additional interviews include BBC Radio 4 Today, BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 2, Times Radio, and Talk TV, as well as numerous articles in the national press.