Pub Companies
Debate between Ann McKechin and Adrian Bailey(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Bailey
No, I was not aware of that e-mail, but I am sure it will illuminate subsequent discussions.
I cannot deal with every issue that has arisen, but it is possible to summarise some of the key issues, the first of which is the statutory code of conduct and an adjudicator. Instead of doing as the Select Committee recommended and introducing a statutory code, determined after consultation with all sections of the industry, the Government have said they will make the existing codes between pub companies and their licensees legally binding. That might sound like a very subtle distinction, but most pub companies believe that their existing contracts with their licensees are legally binding anyway. This approach simply legalises and regularises a situation that is the source of the problem in the first place, and makes very little change.
The second key issue concerns the legal advice that the Government seem to have obtained in reaching their conclusion on the best way forward. On pressing this issue, it became clear to the Committee that the legal advice taken by Government was actually that given to the British Beer and Pub Association—the trade association of the pub companies. They do not seem to have taken any independent legal advice whatever.
Ann McKechin
My hon. Friend is very generous in allowing me to intervene. Does he share my concern that the key difference between a statutory code and a self-regulated one is that under a self-regulated code if a pub should be sold by the landlord to another company that was not a member of the said trade association, the tenant would have no rights, as currently provided under the code, whereas under a statutory code they would have rights?