Takeaway food app Deliveroo urges Boris Johnson to restart Eat Out to Help Out scheme

Takeaway food app Deliveroo urges Boris Johnson to restart Eat Out to Help Out scheme in letter co-signed by 300 restaurants in bid to boost hospitality sector after lockdown

  • Itsu and Pizza Hut also signed the letter asking for Eat Out to Help Out extension 
  • Groups said that businesses had come under ‘immense financial pressure’ 
  • Letter said the scheme would stop hospitality firms from failing after lockdown 

Takeaway food app Deliveroo has urged Boris Johnson to restart the Eat Out to Help Out scheme in a bid to boost the hospitality sector after lockdown

Another 300 restaurant groups, including Itsu and Pizza Hut, cosigned the letter and said the scheme, which gave customers 50 per cent off meals in August, would stop hospitality firms from failing. 

The groups said that businesses had come under ‘immense financial pressure’ due to continued lockdowns throughout the pandemic. 

Companies including Itsu and Pizza Hut cosigned the letter and said the scheme, which gave customers across the UK 50 per cent off meals in August, would stop hospitality firms from failing

In their letter, seen by the BBC, they wrote: ‘Even when they are able to reopen to customers, restrictions around mixing of households and social-distancing measures mean that a return to trading at full capacity will remain dependent on the successful vaccine rollout.

‘The withdrawal of support too early or too suddenly risks viable businesses failing just as the light at the end of the tunnel is becoming clearer.’ 

They credited Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s scheme as helping restaurants ‘survive’ 2020 and urged the government to reinstate it when lockdown is lifted. 

Eat Out to Help Out gave each customer a discount of up to £10 on food and soft drinks on Mondays Tuesdays and Wednesdays and was used 100million times in August.  

The groups said that businesses had come under 'immense financial pressure' due to continued lockdowns throughout the pandemic

The groups said that businesses had come under ‘immense financial pressure’ due to continued lockdowns throughout the pandemic

The letter continues: ‘The boost the scheme provided not only helped protect restaurants from closure but also showed customers the work we have done to make sure they are safe and can get back to enjoying great food.’

The group are also asking the government to extend the five per cent VAT rate, which was reduced from 20 per cent last year, on restaurant food until the end of the year. 

And the letter also requested that the government extends business rates relief for the restaurant sector while keeping the furlough scheme going for as long as necessary.