After 3 months without income, followed by the huge expense of obtaining new equipment, chemicals, signage, PPE, staff training, new online systems and increases in prices from our suppliers for food, the general feeling is that the VAT cut provides restaurants with a way that they might survive through the winter and beyond. With very real possibility of local or national lockdowns, in the coming months, businesses such as ours need to be sure that we are still here to offer a service into the future. There does seem to be some disparity between the Government and the media on this. According to the guidelines issued by our trade organisation, measures introduced are designed to support the sectors that have been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus crisis and to encourage businesses to recover. It is a sector specific reduction to help businesses which have only now been able to open. The VAT saving is nowhere near compensating us for lost business so far but it will supplement the months we have been closed and towards the on-going added costs of the Covid cleaning procedures and equipment. It will also go towards the deficit we are facing at running the remaining months at reduced capacity to help meet with Covid secure guidelines. We hope you will see that this is a matter of survival, rather than profiteering"