Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Snape

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I start by saying how pleased I am to hear from my noble friend the Minister that the spirit and intention behind today’s debate in Committee is to have a general debate and to cover the large range of amendments. I wish, however, to speak to Amendment 82, which I call the exception clause to the MRO—or the clause to permit an exception, I should say, according to my noble friend Lord Hodgson. I support the amendment, which is in the names of my noble friends Lord Hodgson and Lord Ridley and the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising.

I declare an interest—perhaps a rather tenuous interest—as the scion of a brewing family. We owned Younger’s of Alloa, based near Stirling in Scotland, and my father—the late George Younger, the fourth Viscount—was a seventh-generation brewer. He started work in the vats before entering Parliament in 1964, still at the tender age of 32. His father—my grandfather—sold the company in 1961 to Tennent Caledonian. He was one of the first brewers—if not the first—to produce cans of beer with pictures of ladies on the outside, presumably with the intention of increasing sales. The Falkland Islands was one of the export markets.

Down to business. I support, as far as it goes, the intention of the Government in accepting the will of the other place to give tied tenants of large pub-owning companies the right to go free in certain circumstances. The devil is in the detail of the definition of “certain circumstances”. This requires further debate, which we are having today. I know that noble Lords are keen to ensure that the law ends up being robust. I believe that there should be a balanced market, in which large pub-owning companies have all the necessary reassurances that their support of and investment in pubs are viable, and tied tenants have a fair deal, however that might be defined, where there is enough flexibility for them to run their businesses and not be too restricted on purchase of supplies or price, for example.

I note that the intention is that the statutory code and adjudicator will address the imbalance of power in relation to the 13,000 tied tenants of the six pub-owning companies with 500 or more tied pubs. There is good intention behind the further protections given by the Government in the amended MRO clauses by the adoption of certain trigger points, which have already been mentioned by my noble friend the Minister: first, at rent review or five years after the latest one, whichever date is sooner; and, secondly, when the tenant renews their lease.

The two further trigger points that have been mentioned are: first, when there is a significant or unexpected increase in the price of the tied products supplied to the tenant; and, secondly, when an economic event occurs that is beyond the tenant’s control and has a significant impact on the tenant’s ability to operate the pub. I am aware that there will be a consultation on those last two triggers, which I welcome. But I am concerned that the Government may not be going far enough to reassure the pub-owning companies, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to consider a permit to have an exception from the MRO for a particular period of time in the case that a pub-owning company makes a significant investment in that pub. This is for the following reasons.

Pub-owning companies have to be shown that their investment will be secure, viable and provide a satisfactory rate of return over a period of time. In the south-east, for example, there have been investments of as much as £300,000 to £400,000 in pubs where the rate of return is calculated over a period of time—often a long period of time, well beyond five years. A trigger point, however well intentioned, creates a chilling effect. It may, at worst, stop an investment and, at best, it will cause the pub-owning company to lower the investment and perceived risk if the rate of return it needs to secure is over a shorter period because there is a trigger date looming. This is a clear unintended consequence which I am sure the Minister will have considered.

Having alluded primarily in my remarks to funds for developing or renovating pubs, which my noble friend Lord Hodgson also referred to, let us also consider another very important point for pubs: cash flow. Tied tenants are unquestionably grateful for the important financial support during fallow periods of sales, which typically occur for on-trade beer sales from January to late February and October to November each year. Without an MRO, the tied tenant is paying less rent, thereby lowering his annual fixed costs as he will be buying less beer from the company. Such fallow periods include periods when roads may be unexpectedly closed by the council or a snowstorm prevents custom. A trigger point that disfavoured the pub company could mean that there was less room for manoeuvre in negotiations.

Pub companies invest £200 million across the sector each year. Banks are not yet stepping up to the plate to support pubs sufficiently. They still perceive the pub sector as a risky bet when it comes to lending. A director of a finance company was recently quoted as saying that a considerable number of loan applications from viable SMEs were being declined by the high street banks because the application “fails to meet the criteria” or is “outside the bank policy guidelines”. We have all heard this in other, unrelated debates.

[Lord Snape]

Can the noble Lord tell us of any pubcos which are financially successful under the present arrangement? At present, business is as bad for the pubcos as it is for the tenants. No one is making a great deal of money.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for his comment, but I would like to make the point. The gist of my argument is that at the end of the day, the pub company has a choice about where it invests its money. It needs to be sure in investing its money—which it would obviously want to do to support each and every pub—that it is tied down to an amount for a particular period. The pubcos have their shareholders and their employees to think about in terms of that investment.

[Lord Snape]

I apologise for interrupting again. My point was in response to the noble Lord’s comment about the banks being reluctant to lend to SMEs. I presume he puts pubcos into that category. Is that not because the model has proved to be unsuccessful and, from a financial point of view, would amount to a very bad risk for the bank?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

We perhaps need to talk about individual cases, but it is generally perceived that because of the crisis in 2008, banks have changed their lending criteria. Naturally enough, many pubs are small businesses and they are suffering in the same way as other non-pub small businesses. I am making a general point about the banks’ ability to lend.

[Lord Snape]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord for the third time. To take two examples—Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns—the big pubcos have declared appalling financial results. They are selling off the pubs because they are in such a financial mess. It is not surprising in those circumstances that they find it very difficult to borrow money.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I note the noble Lord’s point. I would like to illustrate some of the amounts that these pub companies invest. I mentioned earlier that they invest £200 million across the sector each year. One of the larger pub companies has estimated that, had the MRO been in place without an effective opt-out, the £30 million of capital investment which has taken place in the last 18 months would not have happened.

To illustrate how this investment affects individual businesses, another pub company recently invested £245,000 in one of their pubs in Nantwich in Cheshire. This investment created 10 jobs and took the turnover from £145,000 per annum to £330,000. A similar sum was invested in a pub in Wigan, which again boosted turnover from £250,000 to £345,000 and doubled the number of jobs. These are just two examples to add to the ones given earlier by my noble friend Lord Hodgson, of how tied pub companies invest in their estates every year to the benefit of both parties through the tied contract.

I conclude by saying that I hope the Minister has listened carefully to what I have said about the investment angle for pub companies, while not forgetting that we are talking about the livelihoods of tied tenants as well. That is just as important in terms of being fair.