Pub Companies

Debate between Adrian Bailey and Andy Slaughter

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bailey]

A lot of points have been raised in the debate, and I will try to respond to them in a very brief time.

First, a number of Members have raised the issue of regulation. I wish to make it quite clear that the Select Committee put the ball in the industry’s court to find an appropriate level of regulation to address the problems that we highlighted. It has had any number of opportunities to do that and failed.

The Committee is not instinctively a body of regulators. It has a coalition majority, and at the time of the report it included a former publican, a former pub company owner and, I believe, a former brewery regional manager. There was a level of expertise and historic involvement in the industry that meant the Committee would not favour excessive regulation.

There are issues to consider about the brewers and their tenants and about the pub companies and their licensees. An adequate consultation with all sectors of the industry would have enabled those issues to be teased out and the introduction of an appropriate regulatory regime that would have addressed them sufficiently. Now, the question is whether the Government will conduct such an inclusive consultation to ensure that that takes place.

Another issue that has been raised on many occasions in the debate is the OFT verdict, which is a red herring. The OFT did not give the pub companies clearance in their contractual relationships. It said that the matter did not come within its remit. The Government have used that as a basis for saying that we should not interfere. I find that rather strange, given the fact that Governments have historically introduced many statutes to deal with injustices and imbalances in contractual advantage.

The Government's response is therefore not sufficient, and I find the Minister’s approach to be somewhat incoherent. On the one hand, he says he cannot interfere, but on the other he argues in the House that he is taking action. Either he can interfere or he cannot, and he is either taking action or not taking action, but he cannot marry the two.

At the end of the day, the Government’s approach will be judged by the industry as whole, and not just by the BBPA. We will be able to judge the success of their approach by changes in the relative balance of income on the two sides of the dispute, which has implications for the rate of closure within the industry. In effect, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

The motion provides a mechanism for a professional, comprehensive and inclusive judgment of whether those changes happen. If that mechanism does not work, the Minister, whether he likes it or not, will have no alternative but to introduce a statutory code that will be inclusive and representative of all bodies within the industry.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House believes that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ proposals for reform of the pub industry fall short of the undertaking given to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in July 2010 and that only a statutory code of practice which includes a free-of-tie option with an open market rent review and an independent adjudicator will resolve the contractual problems between the pub companies and their lessees; and calls on the Government to commission a review of self-regulation of the pub industry in the Autumn of 2012 to be conducted by an independent body approved by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, of which I have given you and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) notice. Hammersmith flyover in my constituency has been closed for three weeks. Although we hope for good news as early as today about the reopening, it is clearly a serious matter for my constituents. The hon. Lady has convened a public meeting—nothing wrong with that—to discuss the matter, but she has advertised and convened it in my constituency. She has invited various public bodies, but not me, to the meeting to discuss these matters—she has not invited me to be on the panel.

This goes beyond the ordinary trespassing that Members sometimes commit. I have never heard of an event of this kind. In reality, it means that the public bodies may not attend, because the meeting is now party political. I ask for your guidance, Mr Speaker. The hon. Lady is a new Member and might not know the protocols of the House as well as others do.