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Hospitality businesses were "lambs to the slaughter" unless they received urgent help, Gordon Ramsay has warned. The bold claim comes as hospitality bosses are making a last-ditch plea to Rachel Reeves to protect them from a hammer blow rise in business rates.

Hotel owners say the rises will hit their investment plans as well as UK growth, and are calling on the Chancellor to extend a support package intended for pubs.

Ramsay, whose company operates 34 restaurants in the UK, said the industry was "facing a bloodbath" and that he has "never seen it so bad". He added that restaurants were closing every day as a result of rising business rates, in addition to higher energy, staffing and ingredient costs and little growth in consumer spending.

"I've never seen it so bad," he wrote in The Standard.

He added: "When I look ahead to April, when the budget measures come in, I think those of us in hospitality are lambs to the slaughter."

He argued that the impact was especially severe because businesses were still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, when government-mandated lockdowns had shuttered many restaurants for months, making the current crisis worse than the one following the 2008 financial meltdown.

The celebrity chef added that restaurateurs are "being suffocated" and "need more oxygen - a reduction in rates of 20% or 25%".

Earlier this month, Reeves said she was considering measures to support pubs, in response to criticism over changes to business rates. These changes replaced the generous Covid-era support with smaller discounts, at a time when many businesses were facing higher costs due to property revaluations.

However, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Reeves clarified that her planned support package would not extend to the broader hospitality sector.

The government has put in place several billions of pounds of support to help those facing big bill rises this year, but Ramsay said the changes in rates should be introduced more slowly, The Guardian reports.

According to the trade body UKHospitality, increased rates bills will lead to the closure of an estimated 963 restaurants, 574 hotels and 540 pubs this year, if the government does not introduce hospitality-wide assistance.