HMRC name and shame a ‘kick in the teeth’, says hotelier

Headlam Hall Country Hotel & Spa feels ‘kicked in the teeth’ by HMRC’s report exposing poor-paying employers.

HMRC says the hotel failed to pay £9,157.42 to eight workers, but managing director Thomas Robinson says he has been “treated extremely unfairly over this matter” and that the National Minimum Wage legislation is “flawed and unclear”.

Responding to a Hotel Owner call out for affected hoteliers to share their stories on the HMRC report, Robinson gave the following statement.

“In our case the breach related to French students on a three month placement from a college in Limoges. The college initially contacted us about an arrangement whereby students could come on placement in our hotel to improve their language and hospitality skills as well as an enjoyable life experience.

“As their value as employees would be limited it was specifically stated by the college that they should not be paid a wage and the provision of board and lodgings was all that was required. I have a letter from the college principal to this effect which also states that the same policy applies for students carrying out their work placement within France and regional funding in France covers things such as flight expenses.

“According to National Minimum Wage guidelines it is possible for placement students to receive less than minimum wage when it forms part of their course, however, it transpired following the NMW inspection that this apparently only applies to British college students and not those from other EU countries.”

He added: “The outcome of this situation is that the college in Limoges are extremely sad and disappointed that we can no longer take work experience students as those who had attended reported it to be an extremely valuable experience, in fact, one of the students since returned to the UK to join our workforce on a full-time basis.

“We, as a business, have had an unexpected penalty of over £15,000 taking into account back payments of wages to the French students and the heavy fine imposed by the NMW department. This is a huge financial imposition on a relatively small family business and comes in the same year that our business rates have increased in one ‘fowl [sic] swoop’ by over £30,000 pounds.

“This is a total of over £45,000 off our bottom line in 2017 and has seriously diminished our ability to re-invest in our business to grow and offer more employment opportunities to the local market where over 90% of our staff come from.

“To conclude, we pay all of our employees above NMW and have always enjoyed a strong reputation as a family run business that is a fair employer. In an attempt to add some diversity and assist student development I feel that we have been well and truly ‘kicked in the teeth’ by government.”

Has your hotel or restaurant been unfairly listed by HMRC’s report? If you are willing to speak to a Hotel Owner journalist, please call 020 3598 4630 or email newsdesk@hotelowner.co.uk