Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, said the new measures are “too little, too late”.
“There have been segments of our industry that have been locked down for nearly eight months and haven’t had the Chancellor’s focus to support them, apart from the furlough scheme,” he said.
“We have already seen the best part of a good few hundred thousand jobs go purely for the fact that there has been no action. We are now at a point at the end of October that this is going to culminate in potentially half a million jobs going. It feels a bit too little, too late.”
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, said: “If the government is really serious about avoiding mass redundancies in hospitality, then it needs to do something about the curfew in other parts of the country where infection is lower.”
It came as nightclub operator G-A-Y fired the starting gun on legal action against the Government over the restrictions.
Jeremy Joseph, owner of the nightclub group, threatened this week that he would pursue a judicial review of the curfew if the restriction is not dropped, arguing that it makes “absolutely no sense” and does “the opposite of protecting people”.
In a letter to the health secretary, Mr Joseph said he had requested a “satisfactory response” by 4pm on Tuesday.
However, the Government has asked for 14 days to respond, prompting Mr Joseph to launch a judicial review.
“It is disappointing that the Government has failed to provide this evidence to date,” he said. “They fail to see the logic behind the arbitrary decision for all venues to close at 10pm.”