Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Andrew Griffiths

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I rise to support new clause 2. It was interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and, for about two and a half seconds, I felt sorry for the pub companies. Are they really the great bastions of competition? No, of course they are not. They have lost the confidence of not only the landlords who are their tenants, but this House of Commons and the general public. That is why I congratulate the Government, particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), and her boss, the Business Secretary, on coming up with the pubs code of conduct and the adjudicator. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) and his predecessors, the various Chairs of the Select Committee, all of whom agreed that change was absolutely necessary. On each of the three occasions we have debated this issue in this House of Commons there has been no vote against the basis of the debate: to ensure that there was change with regard to pub companies and how they treat their tenants.

On the new clause, the market rent only option was central to all those debates and to the reports of the Select Committees, because it highlighted the fact that the pub companies take far too much profit for themselves and leave very little for the tenants who run their pubs. The pub companies charge excessive rents and their beer prices are inflated and, as a result, their landlords are often impoverished. Is that competition? It is a cartel and a monopoly; it is nothing to do with competition—it is all about greed. The key principle outlined by the Select Committee reports and others is that the tied licensee should be no worse off than the licensee who is free of tie. That is central to today’s debate and to the decision this House of Commons must take within the next hour.

There are those who argue that new clause 2 would bring doom and disaster upon the industry, with thousands of people losing their jobs and hundreds upon hundreds of pubs closing. That is all scaremongering; it is all tactics to try to ensure that Government Members and some other Members who feel strongly about these issues should vote in a certain way within the hour. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) spoke eloquently, as always, referring to the fact that new clause 2 would mean that the market rent only option would be introduced gradually; it would not suddenly fall upon the pub companies, but would happen in a piecemeal way, bit by bit and with sense.

Secondly, the new clause would not affect small family brewers. As we have all heard, it applies only to companies owning more than 500 public houses. Yet time and again in this debate people have been bringing up the idea that somehow or other companies such as Brains from south Wales, which is active in my constituency, will suddenly disappear from the face of the earth because of new clause 2, which does not affect them.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned Brains, because I understand that it does not support the free-of-tie proposal. Will he understand that although family brewers may not be encompassed by it, they will be affected by it, because they supply their beer to the pubcos and through their pub chains and distribution network? So it is not true to say that family brewers will not be affected; they are deeply concerned by these proposals.

[Paul Murphy]

The concern is not warranted. If new clause 2 came in and tenants were able to choose what beers and ciders they had in their pubs, perhaps in addition to the pubs in south Wales that currently serve Brains beers, other pubs that do not but that are linked into the pubcos could do so. Far from hindering the progress or in some way destroying the profits of Brains, this liberating measure would mean that public houses could serve Guinness, Brains and other local beers and ciders as well.

[Paul Murphy]

The hon. Member for Leeds North West made it perfectly clear—

[Andrew Griffiths]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Murphy]

No, I will not. The hon. Member for Leeds North West made it clear that the detail in new clause 2 was specifically designed to exclude small companies such as Brains and others. It is possible that those companies were frightened by the tactics of some hon. Members and others, or, worse, that they were frightened because the pubcos had told them that they wanted friends to defend their own position. I do not believe for one second that small companies in my constituency, or anywhere else, would be adversely affected if pub companies allowed their tenants and landlords to earn a living wage—what is wrong with that?—to have a variety of cheaper beers, including those of the small companies, and to ensure that the profits are shared. Nothing in that could be said to be anti-competition. On the contrary, it probably means that they would do better in their pubs if they were allowed to earn more, to share their profits properly and to sell beer and cider from the microbreweries that exist in many of our constituencies. No, this is all about scare tactics.

Pub Companies

Debate between Lord Murphy of Torfaen and Andrew Griffiths

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

In the last three Januarys, including this one, I have written to Mr Speaker to ask to speak in a debate on pub companies. In all three debates—I assume this one as well—there has been unanimity across the House of Commons on what measures need to be taken. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and, although he is not here, the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), and many others too, right across the political spectrum, who regard this as a very serious and important issue. There have been two unanimous votes in the House of Commons on this, although on the second one it took 24 hours before the Secretary of State decided that he agreed with the House of Commons, and he came along and gave us great assurances of what would happen.

There have been four Select Committee reports, more or less all arguing for the same course of action. Enormous numbers of people from our constituencies—I think of Mr Phil Jones who owns the Open Hearth in Griffithstown in my constituency—have written to us about the iniquities of the system. A large number of organisations support the basis of the Opposition motion, including the GMB, CAMRA and the Federation of Small Businesses—a whole host of them. The essence of it is that they all say—I understand that the Secretary of State agrees with this—that first of all there should be a statutory code of practice; secondly, a mandatory rent-only option for pubcos that own more than 500 pubs; thirdly, an open market rent review; and finally, an independent adjudicator. All those are meant to enhance the significance and importance of the role of pubs in our communities. That has already been mentioned a number of times, and I am sure will continue to be throughout the course of the debate.

A new institution that has come into the debate, which many hon. Members will have read about, is the Local Government Association, which talked about the importance of pubs in our communities, and, as the Secretary of State mentioned, the importance of the community right to bid for pubs. But the essence of my contribution is not what has been said and will be said, but why we have had a delay, which strikes at the heart of what was said by the Secretary of State—who clearly is not listening to me, but perhaps other hon. Members are.

The Secretary of State presides over one of the largest Departments in the Government. He has an army of officials and civil servants and a little army of junior Ministers. He tells us today that the reason why this has been delayed is that the consultation is so enormous, so vast and so unwieldy that they cannot make up their minds as to what to do, but in the same speech he admits that this was not an open-ended consultation. This was a consultation on the basis of the Government not having made up their mind but being very close to making up their mind on what the solution should be. In many ways it was a closed consultation, making it much easier.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s desire for movement and to see some improvement in this matter, but does he not accept that in 13 years of his Government, despite 6,000 pubs closing in the last three years alone, they did nothing at all, apart from a few weeks before the general election, when, amazingly, something appeared in the manifesto? Does he understand that at least this Government are listening to the consultation and looking to make some changes for the good?

[Paul Murphy]

Of course I accept that Labour could have done more when we were in government, but after three debates in the House of Commons during the last three years, and when the Government have already said that they want to take these matters into legislation, they are now using the excuse of a consultation being too burdensome to allow them to make up their mind. If we were at the beginning of a parliamentary Session, that would not be too bad, but we are not. We are 15 months away from a general election. We are possibly just months away from a Queen’s Speech. When my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield referred to the fact that this had been kicked into touch, perhaps he had a point. Unless the Government make up their mind relatively soon, time will run out and nothing will happen between now and the general election.