Sharma confirms on-trade to stay shuttered until 4 July

By Lisa Riley

Published: 09 June, 2020

Business secretary Alok Sharma has confirmed that the on-trade is to remain closed until 4 July.

The confirmation of the original plan for the on-trade to start re-opening 4 July follows reports over the weekend that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was understood to be close to agreeing with a group of senior ministers to move the date forward to 22 June.

At today’s daily briefing (9 June), Sharma also confirmed that non essential retail businesses can reopen from 15 June.

Referring to the on-trade he said: “But of course, there are businesses which still remain closed. As soon as we can, we will publish further safer working guidance for restaurants, pubs and bars, as well as hairdressers barbers, nail bars and related services.

“These documents will provide practical steps to allow those business to reopen in a manner that is as safe as possible for workers and their customers.

“I know there's been a lot of speculation about when we might be able to reopen these pumps to the economy and I completely understand why we're all so keen to get them back up and running as soon as possible and share that enthusiasm. But we continue to follow the roadmap, which sets out our ambition to reopen the sectors, from 4 July, at the earliest. In the meantime, we will continue to protect livelihoods and support businesses, so they're ready to bounce back and play their part in the economic recovery.”

When asked whether he had been arguing for the 2 metre rule to be reduced to 1 metre, as now recommended by the World Health Organisation, Sharma said: “The 2 metre rule is currently in place and of course, when it is safe to do so, we will see whether you can move to a shorter distance, but ultimately we keep all of these things under review".

When pressed on the previous promise by the PM of a review on the social distancing rule “in good time” for the reopening of shops on 15 June, and whether it would be reduced, Sharma reiterated “we keep all these things under review”.

“The 2 metres stay in place for the moment. But as I've also made very clear, we keep all of these things under review.

“I do get why businesses in a whole range of sectors make the economic case why you would want to move closer than 2 metres, but ultimately this is about what is safe.

“We will keep this under review and we will only make changes when it is safe to do so."

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