BUSINESS leaders issued a fresh call for support for the beleaguered hospitality sector today after fears around omicron led to a sharp drop in trade in the run-up to Christmas.

The leaders said that the hospitality sector was already seeing custom fall far below normal seasonal levels and renewed their appeals for government help.

They said a £6,000 compensatory grant awarded by the government was less than the amount being lost by many businesses in a single day.

British Chambers of Commerce president Baroness McGregor-Smith warned that although the hospitality sector was being allowed to remain open, with many people staying away from pubs and restaurants, the decision would not make up for custom lost during what should have been the busiest time of the year.

She urged the government to extend business rates relief and the emergency rate of VAT beyond the end of March and to bring back a “focused” furlough job support scheme.

Businesses in the sector also needed flexibility over the repayment of loans that they had taken out to support them through the pandemic, the Tory peer added.

“Many, many have got more debt than they ever had before,” she said.

“They are now in a position where they are going to have to pay that back and I think the Treasury needs to look very carefully at the repayment schemes for many loans across the UK.”

Adnams brewery chief executive Andy Wood reported a 50 per cent drop in visitors to pubs and hotels after England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty urged people to be cautious about socialising.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “More than half of Christmas has been lost. This is a sector that has the economic equivalent of long Covid.

“There is going to need to be support for the sector through the dark months of January, February and March.”

While there is relief among businesses in England that New Year’s Eve celebrations will be able to go ahead, some scientists have expressed concern about the lack of new restrictions impacting the NHS.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said that staff absences could pose a bigger challenge to the health service than patients needing treatment for Covid.

He told BBC Breakfast: “In some hospitals, we’re now having to redeploy staff to fill the gaps that are being left in critical and essential services by staff who are off with Covid-related absences.”