Connor Donnithorne has spent the last six years building award-winning fish and chip restaurants. He fought a parliamentary seat in 2024 and is back on the Approved Candidates list. He leads the Conservative group on Cornwall Council.

Pubs, cafes, restaurants and dare I say it, fish and chip shops, are the beating heart of communities across the country. They are where young people get their first job, where friends and family get together and create bustling spaces on otherwise quiet high streets.

The majority of hospitality businesses are small in size. They’re often run by generations of the same family. And they often give communities a sense of spirit and character. But for too long, politicians have regarded them as providers of social good rather than businesses that exist to create jobs, build wealth and make a profit.

And this Labour government is without doubt the worst we’ve had to deal with. It has treated small, family businesses like cash cows, with pubs, hotels and restaurants seen as fair game. Labour ministers are using hospitality businesses like a never ending ATM to print them more and more money to spend on welfare and other Labour fads.

What really adds insult to injury is the fact that Labour are doing everything they told us they wouldn’t do. Rachel Reeves came into government promising to cut business rates and instead hiked them. She pretended rates were being cut and blamed the Valuation Agency Office for their re-evaluations as the reason bills were going up. She did so without a hint of remorse and irony, given that she had sight of their plans and knew exactly what would happen.

The consequences have been obvious for all to see. Our high streets are littered with empty shops. Village pubs are closing their downs for the final time. An entire generation of young people struggling to find summer work. Thousands of cafes and restaurants have closed. And those shops lucky enough to break even are cutting hours and letting people go.

And to pile on further pressure, we’ve had Rayner piling in, desperate to distract from her epic levels of champagne-socialism hypocrisy over where she did, or did not, pay the correct levels of tax on her second home on the South Coast.

If there was a single piece of legislation that needed repealing immediately, it is the job-destroying (Un)Employment Rights Act, which has put the fear of God into entrepreneurs across the Country, the very people we need to be brave, take a risk and create jobs. As a result, we’ve seen over one hundred thousand people lose their jobs in the hospitality sector alone, accounting for almost half of all jobs lost.

And it really didn’t need to be like this. The hospitality sector has always been happy to play its part in creating jobs and driving economic growth. Entrepreneurs understand that well-funded public services help to produce an educated and healthy workforce. But it feels like we are being singled out for punishment, by a Labour government that had an unprecedented lack of private sector experience. In fact, our new Shadow Chancellor has more business experience than the entire Cabinet put together.

With a large pair of rose-tinted glasses, and a huge dose of disappointment, it therefore seems inevitable that this Government would do what it has done. Because it just doesn’t understand business or what it takes to create jobs. We have a political class full of NGO and charity-sector bosses. Many of whom are talented people. But Labour lacks the business-minded ministers who could have spotted their mistakes before making them.

Imagine the scene.

The Business Secretary sits down with this ministerial team to consider options presented to them. The civil servant speaks up, proposing to increase Employer National Insurance. A former business-owning Minister would simply respond: But that’ll mean small businesses won’t be able to afford to hire new people, let alone keep the staff they already have. They’ll have to slash jobs and probably lower their output meaning fewer sales. The civil servant suggests an alternative measure – hiking the wage costs for younger employees. But that’ll mean that businesses are less able to offer entry-level jobs and could mean a generation of youngsters missing out on summer work and the experience and skills they learn from this? Ah, the civil servant replies… then let’s double down on Net Zero objectives and ban new exploration licences in our domestic oil and gas sector? But Secretary of State, you do realise that we already have some of the most expensive commercial energy rates in the developed world. And by further driving up these costs, we will make hundreds of thousands of small businesses simply unviable.

You get the picture.

The economic catastrophe we are all living through is entirely of Labour’s own making. And that is exactly why the next Conservative government must have a clear plan: to make Britain the best place in the world to set up, run and grow a small business.

And we’ve made a good start. Our pledge to scrap business rates for most high street businesses and ending outdated workplace restrictions will make it easier for businesses to create jobs and invest in their operations.

But we’ve got to keep pushing ahead with a bold vision for enterprise. And that should include exploring how we can affordably lower the VAT burden paid by hospitality businesses and their customers.

Britain’s pubs, restaurants, cafes, hotels and attractions don’t want subsidies or handouts. They just want to keep more of the money they earn to be able to invest back into their businesses: improving their premises on the high street, training staff and creating more jobs. And that will be much easier if the government gets out of the way.

And as Conservatives, we know to trust the people and entrepreneurs who take the risk, create the jobs and open their doors each morning.

If we want thriving high streets, more well-paid job opportunities and vibrant communities, we need to put hospitality and tourism at the centre of our economic plan for growth.

And our battle cry is simple: stop taxing hospitality businesses as though they are the problem and start recognising them as part of the solution to get Britain working again.