Sacha Lord calls for all pubs to reopen and 10pm curfew to be scrapped after lockdown

Sacha Lord has called on Matt Hancock to scrap the 10pm curfew and allow all pubs to reopen once the national lockdown is over.

The night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester described it as ‘an attack on our class culture’ to only allow pubs that serve food to open in Tier 3.

Mr Lord explains that it deprives lower-paid people disproportionately, taking away their opportunities to go out.

This appeal comes after Mr Lord launched a legal challenge against the decision to close pubs and introduce a 10pm curfew, questioning the science behind these decisions.

He took to Twitter to post a video message directed to Matt Hancock, ‘on behalf of pubs, restaurants and bars across the whole of the UK’.

Mr Lord said: “We’ve done everything you’ve asked of us since March. And the government has done some great things, for example furlough, help with VAT and – for some – help with business rates relief.

“But as you know we’ve seen many mass closures and huge redundancies.”

He continued: “We all now know [the curfew] does more harm than good in both spreading the virus and damage to businesses and jobs.

“I’ve put a team together of world-leading, large-scale events experts who specifically deal with egress, and they’re prepared to drop everything over the next two weeks and work with your team to show you how to safely allow people to flow – because pushing everybody out at the same time is not the right answer.”

On top of that, Mr Lord is also calling for the reopening of ‘wet-led’ pubs, I.E pubs that don’t sell food – which were forced to close in Tier 3 areas like Greater Manchester.

It’s expected England will revert back to the local tier system once the national lockdown finishes on December 2nd, and if our region goes back into Tier 3 only pubs that serve food will be able to open again.

Mr Lord said: “They are the local community pubs who, during lockdown, borrowed money from friends and family to pay for the new measures that you asked for.

“The majority of these pubs are in our most deprived areas.

“Tier 3 doesn’t affect some people – they can go for dinner, they can have a few drinks. So why is it right that they can experience social activity and enjoy themselves whilst those that are the most lowest paid and live in the most deprived areas just can’t? It’s not fair.

“Mr Hancock, this is an attack on our class culture.”

He finished by saying: “This is not about politics. This is about working together. This is about creating safe environments and saving what is left of our sector.

“Myself and my team are now offering you the help. Let’s lift the 10pm curfew. Let’s allow the lowest paid the same freedoms as everybody else. Thank you.”