Trade body UKHospitality is the ‘authoritative voice’ for over 700 companies in a sector that employed 3.2 million people prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, commented: “The ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme was a welcome and timely boost to the hospitality sector but is now a deep and distant memory as hospitality gather dust under the latest restrictions and enforced closures.

“The sector should be commended for its role in rebuilding customer confidence by providing safe, controlled environments, and simultaneously powering the national economy.

“The Treasury’s statement and data rightly pulls the rug from under claims that Eat Out To Help Out caused a rise in Covid infections. Hospitality safely welcomed around 60 million customers a week from July to mid-September, and during that period less than 1% of hospitality staff tested positive and only 3% of cases could be attributed to hospitality setting.”