Let’s scrap the Table Tax

“It’s all a bit European for me” was my granny’s withering verdict as her home of West Yorkshire rushed to welcome the Tour de France in 2014 by putting tables and chairs outside cafes and pubs along the route.

But while no amount of al fresco dining could turn beautiful Ilkley into majestic Paris, my grandmother — usually a fount of conservative wisdom and common sense — got this one wrong. The joy of eating and drinking outside in the sun is not a privilege reserved for our European cousins, but an integral part of what makes British towns come alive when spring is sprung.

A couple of tables and a few chairs outside your local greasy spoon might not seem like much, but it matters. From increased footfall for some of our smallest local businesses to more people getting out in the fresh air, the character of our towns and cities is enhanced by the little things.

When we spend more time out and about in our community, we have more of a stake in its present condition and its future prospects. That coffee you have every Friday morning sitting outside the shop round the corner makes you care more about the air you’re breathing, the litter you see, and the noise of the cars you hear.

That’s what the environment means to most ordinary people — it’s not about temperature graphs or energy systems, but about what you see when you step outside your front door. You cannot truly understand your community, its joys and its ills, unless you experience it for yourself.

But, inevitably, even the simple pleasure of enjoying an outdoor pint has fallen foul of government diktat. The act of putting a few tables and chairs outside a local restaurant may seem harmless enough, but Whitehall disagrees.

Enter the Table Tax. In yet another example of the pettifogging bureaucratic overreach that has come to characterise Britain’s economic decline, local authorities must issue licences for use of the pavement outside hospitality businesses, with the vast majority going further and charging businesses for doing so.

Licences last for up to two years and can cost up to £500 for new applications and £350 for renewals, but the regime is slightly different everywhere you go. In Westminster, licences have to be renewed every three to six months; in Watford, you pay more depending on how many chairs you have; and in Wandsworth, one of the few councils not to charge for a licence, time-poor business owners still have to go through the application process.

What, really, is the point of all this? Councils are supposed to be encouraging vibrant high streets and boosting the local economy, but they are propagating a system that disincentivises this through pointless paperwork and churlish charges.

And if you’re thinking that it’s only right that cafes and pubs contribute to the upkeep of the streets they operate on, don’t they already do that through the business rates they pay to the council? Indeed, aren’t business owners themselves clearly incentivised to make sure that the pavement their customers are sitting on is clean and tidy, without waiting for the council to sort it for them?

A few hundred pounds a year may not sound like a lot by itself, but look at the wider backdrop that the hospitality sector faces. Add the cost of the table tax to rising National Insurance bills, business rates, and minimum wage increases, not to mention the cost of compliance with Labour’s smorgasbord of new employment rights legislation, and a little relief would go a long way. And no, the answer isn’t yet another pot of central government funding designed to undo some of the damage caused by the government’s own policies. Businesses need the government to get out of the way.

Because cafes, restaurants, and pubs rarely close with great fanfare or drama. It’s not some great event that finishes them off, or anything that will make the news. Instead it’s death by a thousand cuts —  the consequences of being made to pay for years of politicians’ failures to take difficult decisions on health, pensions, and welfare that would actually put Britain back on a sound economic footing.

As the weather warms up … ministers have the opportunity to make good on their rhetoric to support the hospitality sector

It might not matter to Whitehall, but every chair and every table removed from our high streets because a business can’t afford to keep them there anymore is a failure of good government. It’s a failure for small businesses desperately trying to make ends meet; it’s a failure for their customers wanting to sit outside in the sun; and it’s a failure for all of us who care about fostering community pride. A retreat from the pavements of our town centres would be a sign of something much deeper: a retreat from civic pride itself.

It’s time to scrap the table tax. By all means make sure that pavements are safe and accessible for those who use them, but stop using our cafes, pubs, and restaurants as a cash cow for doing something that the whole community benefits from. As the weather warms up and ministers have the opportunity to make good on their rhetoric to support the hospitality sector, let’s take this outside.