Enterprise Bill [HL]

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

Again, both of us have to stand by our remarks, but I reinforce mine by quoting the statement made by Enterprise Inns’ chief executive on 17 November 2015:

“Where publicans who are currently on tied agreements transfer to the MRO model, the sites will be managed by our commercial property team, but will only be transferred to our commercial property estate on a permanent basis if they meet our strict quality criteria, in order that the underlying quality of the estate is not compromised. Sites that fail to meet the quality criteria, and where we believe that the MRO outcome is unattractive”—

to the pubco, of course, not to the tenant—

“will be run as commercial properties until such time as an opportunity arises to generate optimal returns through conversion to an alternative model”.

Nothing the pubcos could say as far as this legislation is concerned can really be believed. The only real protection for tenants and for pubco employees lies in the acceptance of these amendments. If the Government are not prepared to accept them and to stand by the promises and pledges made continuously over the 10 or 11 months since the House of Commons passed the relevant amendment, I urge my noble friends on the Front Bench to test the will of the House and to see that these eminently reasonable proposals are implemented.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, the background to this short debate is that pubs around the country are closing at an unprecedented rate. There are many communities in which the pub is the hub. The one thing we can be clear about is that these amendments will not do anything to halt that trend and may—indeed, almost certainly will—exacerbate it.

On the detail, I bow to the knowledge of my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. However, on the first amendment, it seems quite wrong to try to make such a change when a consultation process is already under way on the related secondary legislation. Surely we should allow that process to go through before attempting to change the situation. Equally, the pub adjudicator, the result of very recent legislation, has not been seen at work in practice. As my noble friend Lord Hodgson pointed out, the pub adjudicator has great power to intervene when there are complaints. Again, surely we should allow that situation to at least be tested before trying to change the legislation.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I think we established in Committee that the current, ongoing consultation has departed from the objective of the enterprise Bill we were looking at in January, which was to introduce the PRA, the parallel rent assessment. The Minister told us in Committee that there were two reasons for this change. One was the cost to the sector of £600,000, and the second was about trying to do away with complexity. However, there was also the slight suggestion, as the discussion developed, that there had been some oversight here, and I would just like it clarified that this was intentional and that the Government have gone back on the previous legislation.

My former colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said that we should continue the consultation now it has started, but the consultation started on a basis which the legislation did not provide for. The intention of the legislation we looked at in January was to have a parallel rent assessment, which was part of the further protection for tenants in this whole process. I would like some confirmation on that, but we remain sympathetic to this amendment because it basically restores what we agreed in January.