Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home.

I'm your host, Alan Tollust. We're doing something a bit different. We're taking the podcast out of the studio, and as you can probably hear, we're in the pub, and for good reason, not just that it's half-term recess for MPs and I fancied a pint.

We're here in the Sanctuary House just at the road from Parliament a year on from our last

pubcast to talk about the hospitality industry after another bruising 12 months or closures

across the board amid massive pressures on pay, revenue and costs.

Joining me ahead of the budget to discuss how some of these issues might be resolved by government

I'm delighted to be welcome back charlotte nichols labor MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on pubs and ellie hosbith senior campaigns and communications manager at the campaign group camera who won last year's episode in the pub and this year they're joined by t Sofaclides, strategic affairs director at the industry

group, UK hospitality, as well as Emma McClarkin, CEO of the British Beer and Pub Association.

So I'm going to start with you, Charlotte. Obviously, I said we're a year on. We did this a year ago,

just ahead of the budget. living crisis is something that has

really impacted pubs over the last year and that's shown no signs of abating and if anything

it's getting worse. It's having a real issue on consumer confidence and willingness to go into

pubs and to spend their money there. But it's also meaning that pubs are finding it harder and harder to recruit and retain staff

because of the pressures on labour costs.

And of course, the other things, including energy costs and the costs for their suppliers.

So we have this perfect storm within the sector. We're still seeing

pubs and nightclubs and other hospitality venues closing at a really alarming rate. And I don't

think we've seen from the government the urgency in addressing this in the way that we need to see.

And it's really disappointing, given how important

pubs are to all of our communities. Yeah, we're going to come on to the wider, kind of

pressures that were last year coming out of the pandemic and that sort of have maintained. And

obviously, inflation, although has started to come down, is still high. It's still 4% as we found

...