The owner of a UK pub chain has said he will return the government's £250,000 Covid-19 grant if his branches are used to speed up the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccinations.
Dermot King, the chief executive of restaurant group, Oakman Inns, said his business will return Rishi Sunak's lockdown support if he allows the NHS to use his pubs as vaccination centres.
Through the Treasury's business grants, Oakman Inns is due to receive £250,000 over the next four months, but King said the business will forego the support to help pay for a bigger and quicker vaccination roll-out. "The only route to any normality is through mass vaccination and for that the NHS needs to be able to work at scale," he explained. "The entire hospitality industry is