Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Baroness Stedman-Scott and Lord Howard of Rising

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

My Lords, I advise the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to it pre-empts Amendments 91A and 91AZA.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 91D in this group. Its purpose is to remove uncertainty and so give smaller breweries a stable background in which to run their businesses. Helping small business is after all the purpose of the Bill. For these smaller breweries—indeed, for any pub company—to be successful in a declining market, it is essential that they make significant investment in their pubs. This necessary investment is not practical if they do not know under what rules they are operating. My noble friend mentioned changing the figure of 500 by affirmative resolution, but while change by regulation or order goes some way towards parliamentary examination it is, for practical purposes, a rubber stamp. Between 1950 and 2014, only 11 resolutions were rejected in the other place and only five in your Lordships’ House.

For that reason, if the Secretary of State can change the 500-pub definition to a different number by regulation, that will create uncertainty and severely restrict, if not halt, the investment necessary for the survival of the smaller breweries—which, by the way, generally speaking, have been increasers rather than closers of pubs. If noble Lords think that it is overpessimistic to say that investment will dry up, I remind them that under the last change in the rules governing the ownership of pubs many famous names, as my noble friend Lord Hodgson alluded to earlier, such as Whitbread, Bass, Scottish & Newcastle, Courage and Watneys have been absorbed by multinationals. It would be against the spirit of what we are trying to achieve today if a consequence was to contribute to the demise of small breweries.

Any change to the number of 500 should be subject to primary legislation. I urge the Minister to consider the amendment seriously so that those smaller breweries can continue to invest and create the prosperity necessary to maintain that part of the pub sector and help stem the decline of pubs.