Covid-19 update

2nd February 2021

Dear Member

COVID-19 UPDATE

Business Interruption Insurance – I know this remains a hot topic for a number of members and the recent Supreme Court ruling will hopefully help a number of members get a payout. As I have said before, the crucial point will be the precise words contained in your BII clause and your broker should be able to help with this. There is a new useful ‘clause checker’ on the FCA website that members might want to take a look at here: https://www.fca.org.uk/decision-tree/business-interruption-insurance-policy-checker. The FCA’s FAQ page is also very good.

Scotland – The First Minister is making an announcement today. There is no expectation there will be any major news about re-opening. I have confirmed that the three month rates relief extension announced by Kate Forbes last week continues to cover amusement arcades.

National – As you know we are beginning to ratchet up our lobbying around re-opening and VAT relief. The plan (for England) will be published w/c 22^nd February and I expect timings will be similar for Scotland and Wales. There are two key things I need members to push on with their MPs/MSPs/MSs in all parts of Britain. For Division 1 members can you press your local MP to support our case for a temporary 5% rate of VAT, and for Division 3 members can you write again to press MPs/MSPs/MSs to support our case to re-open alongside all other non-essential retail premises. I have drafted some template letters you can use at the bottom of this update but as always if you can use your own words it will come across with more power. Many thanks.

Also it would be good to get from Division 3 members a sense of whether you would be happy to open under a set of conditions similar to those of the bookmakers in Tier 3. You will recall I canvassed your views on this before Christmas. The bookies agreed to close at 8.00 p.m., switch off two machines, limit visits to 15 minutes and allow no more than two visits per day. Members had split views. As you can see we are likely to get into conversations with Government shortly over re-opening and I wanted to test the water on these points. I am not saying we would even offer these – coming out of this lockdown is very different – but it would be good to get a sense of the members’ views. I hopeful it won’t be necessary to even have the conversation. However I need know.

Also on a related point it would good if members could refresh their familiarity with the bacta covid-19 guidance and risk assessment on the bacta website. We will want to say categorically that members have put in place a full suite of measures to ensure our customers are safe.

Miles for Smiles – I hope you will have all seen yesterday the note launching Miles for Smiles. This initiative will run through February and March and all we are asking you to do as an individual or as a team is to sign up to complete as many ‘Smile Miles’ of exercise as you can during the next two months. Get sponsored and raise some cash for the bacta Charitable Trust (as well as lose some weight!). We already have over 20 people and teams signed up and will be introducing a little bit of competition into the mix as we go along. Contact Steph Norbury (stephcurtisraleigh@gmail.com) to sign up and in the meantime take a look at this inspirational video from our very own industry motivator, Tony Glanville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNrxY-1udGU&feature=youtu.be

Bacta Staff – Finally can I publicly welcome Linda Morrison to the bacta team. Linda started with us in January in the Finance team. Sariah Ramiah who was working in finance, has taken up a new role within bacta on the Operations side of our work and you will, as a result, start to see some emails from her arriving in your in-boxes. I am sure you will join me in wishing them both well in their new roles with us.

Division 1 members

Dear [insert mp name]

You may recall that I run [company] in [location].

The situation with Covid-19 continues to deeply impact my business. Government support has definitely helped us get this far, but unless we get some more help to get us through to re-opening, I fear for the survival of amusement arcades up and down the coast of the UK including my own. We have had no income at all since the summer and a shortened season is looking likely again in 2021.

The unique difficulties of the tourism sector were recognised by the Chancellor in the Summer when he agreed to a temporary 5% rate of VAT for a swathe of tourism businesses. For some reason amusement arcades were not seen as warranting the cut. That was and is a mistake. What is my business if it is not in the tourism sector? That rate of VAT on the restricted income I have had would mean just that extra few thousand pounds I need to get me through this crisis. Overall my trade body bacta has calculated the total cost to be no more than around £15 million to the Exchequer. It is easily achieved by reducing the VAT rate to 5% on amusement machines, the benefit of which would then flow to businesses like mine and would bring VAT into line with the 5% Machines Games Duty rate I pay on my penny falls and other machines.

Could I ask you once again to make representations on my behalf to the Chancellor to get him to see the sense in supporting my tourist business as he has said he wants to do.

Division 3 members in England

Dear [insert mp name]

You may recall that I run [company] in [location].

Like many others the impact of this pandemic has left us in a very parlous state and whilst Government support has helped get us this far we cannot remain shut for very much longer. The vaccination programme seems to be going well and we are anxiously awaiting the Prime Minister’s announcement on plans for re-opening, which has to be sooner rather than later if we are going to get through to the other side of this crisis.

Throughout the past year, my High Street gaming centre has been ordered to close as part of the leisure and entertainment industry. When we raised this at the beginning of the crisis we were deemed to be Shops, which is what we are, and we appeared in the Covid Guidance for Shops. Nevertheless, legislation referred to us at the time as amusement arcades like those found at the seaside. High Street gaming centres have a totally different range of products, are adult only and rarely have more than six or so customers on the premises at anyone time.

Subsequent legislation has now separately identified Adult Gaming Centres in the tiering legislation, but crucially it has excluded us from the list of those shops allowed to open as non-essential retail. We are the only venue type that has had to remain shuttered on the High Street. This cannot be right, especially when our bookmaking competitors, are open. We are not, nor have we been a vector for the transmission of the virus. We are safe.

Can I please ask you to make representations to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office to make sure that my business can once again start to play its part in rejuvenating the economy by getting us open alongside other non-essential retail premises on the High Street.

Division 3 members in Scotland

Dear [insert msp name]

You may recall that I run [company] in [location].

Like many others the impact of this pandemic has left us in a very parlous state and whilst Government support has helped get us this far we cannot remain shut for very much longer. The vaccination programme seems to be going well and we are anxiously awaiting the First Minister’s announcement on plans for re-opening, which has to be sooner rather than later if we are going to get through to the other side of this crisis.

Throughout the past year, my High Street gaming centre has been ordered to close from time to time. Most recently at Level 3 (before we went into lockdown). I found this perplexing as we are shops. We are no different to other non-essential retail establishments. Our major competitors in the bookmaking sector were allowed to open as non-essential. We are also adult only premises and rarely have more than six or so customers on the premises at anyone time. As we now begin to think about re-opening when it is safe to do so it is crucial we are open as non-essential retail.

Can I please ask you to make representations to the First Minister to make sure that my business can once again start to play its part in rejuvenating the economy by getting us open alongside other non-essential retail premises on the High Street. We have to get trading again soon and our premises are safe to do so.

Division 3 Members in Wales

Dear [insert ms name]

You may recall that I run [company] in [location].

Like many others the impact of this pandemic has left us in a very parlous state and whilst UK Government support has helped get us this far we cannot remain shut for very much longer especially as the Welsh Government has refused us the grants given to other part of the retail sector. Whilst the vaccination programme seems to be going well, we are anxiously awaiting the First Minister’s announcement on plans for re-opening, which has to be sooner rather than later if we are going to get through to the other side of this crisis.

Throughout the past year, my High Street gaming centre has been ordered to close as part of the leisure and entertainment industry. We are however, shops. Nevertheless, legislation referred to us as amusement arcades like those found at the seaside. High Street gaming centres have a totally different range of products, are adult only and rarely have more than six or so customers on the premises at anyone time.

Throughout the past year, my High Street gaming centre has been ordered to close from time to time. Most recently at Level 3 (before we went into lockdown). I found this perplexing as we are shops. We are no different to other non-essential retail establishments. Our major competitors in the bookmaking sector were allowed to open as non-essential. We are also adult only premises and rarely have more than six or so customers on the premises at any one time. As we now begin to think about re-opening when it is safe to do so it is crucial we are open as non-essential retail.

Many thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Kind regards

John