Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Will the Minister finally give a date for the implementation of the pubs code? With licensees currently missing out due to the Department’s mistake and the delay, will she now apply the Burmah Oil principle to ensure that the code is retrospective from the original date, as it clearly can be?
Anna Soubry
We have re-laid the regulations, and I am looking forward to them passing through their various stages so that we can implement the pubs code as a matter of urgency. I very much hope that it will be implemented by the time the House rises.
BHS
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland
Anna Soubry
I do not really want to go back through my statement, but I did identify in some detail the assistance that people are given, be it help with CV writing, or making sure they have access to training and reskilling. The Department for Work and Pensions—this is a good and admirable idea—is contacting other retailers to see what jobs might be available locally for people, so that they can, in effect, transfer over and apply for those jobs. And, yes, I do believe that our cuts to business rates for small businesses was an outstanding achievement of the Chancellor in the last Budget, and I am confident that as a result real assistance will be given to small businesses, notably those on the high street.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
The first concern of everyone in this House are the people who have lost jobs and pensions, and there are many questions to which they and we still want to hear answers. Looking forward, however, will the Minister assure the House that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will look at the lessons from this and the failure of Austin Reed? Will she consider launching a retail strategy, working with business, so that we do not end up with high streets that are all just payday lenders and betting shops?
Anna Soubry
We started a great deal of work, as the last Government, on looking at the future of the high street, going to Mary Portas and others for ideas on how we could assist. That has mainly been done through not only BIS, but, notably, the Department for Communities and Local Government. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, local government can play a hugely important part in ensuring that high streets develop in the right way, thrive and grow, which is one reason why we changed the planning laws. Often this relies on local people thinking outside the box and being radical in how they think about the future of their high street. I think there was another question, but I cannot remember it, because there were quite a few. In any event, the usual rules will apply: I will write to him if there is anything I have forgotten.
BHS
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland
Anna Soubry
I suspect I am going to disappoint my right hon. Friend—I mean my hon. Friend, I nearly gave him a bump up there, which I am sure he deserves—because the changes in business rates are more likely to affect small businesses. Multi-chain businesses, even those with just three or four shops in a particular area, will not get the great benefit that we have undoubtedly given to small businesses, whereby very few of them pay any rates at all and many will have had a big reduction in their bills. That would not have benefited BHS, however.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
I commend Ministers for listening where there have been abuses of corporate power before, and I urge this Minister to listen to the Select Committee on this issue. Given the need to modernise in retail, will she reconsider the freeze on further education budgets, so that those in the retail sector can be upskilled to face the sort of challenges that arise in that sector?
Anna Soubry
I am not particularly convinced, but I will have a look at it and probably write to the hon. Gentleman. Frankly, I think the most important thing is that retail has suffered in many ways, although in some instances it has benefited, from the internet. That is the real trick. It is about how we make sure that there is still a place for the shop on our high streets in the internet age. I believe that there absolutely is a place for shops. I advise reading Bill Grimsey’s report on the future of the high street, which is enlightening, as I said, and contains some excellent ideas.
Pubs Code and the Adjudicator
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Greg Mulholland
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, though I do not agree with him. With respect, I feel he has always been slightly confused on this issue. These are clear loopholes that could have very damaging consequences. I can tell the hon. Gentleman, the Minister and the House that pub companies are currently doing all they can to avoid the legislation and the code before 26 May. They are applying pressure on lessees to take up a rent review before 26 May, in advance of scheduled reviews, in order directly to circumvent the code and the market rent-only option specifically.
Some tenants are being coerced to relinquish long leases and take up five-year contracts that are not renewable, so that they are not subject to a market rent-only option. Some pubcos—I have seen one such case myself—are cynically issuing section 25 notices, ending existing tenancies or leases by 31 March to escape the impact of the market rent-only option. The Government must make it clear that the pubs code and the market rent-only option apply to all agreements that have renewal dates or rent reviews from 1 June 2016, because there is some confusion. I hope we will hear that from the Minister today.
Some tenants are also being bribed to sign an agreement without a market rent-only option. One tenant contacted the Save the Pub group to say that she had been offered a 20% drop in her dry rent if she signed a new five-year non-renewable tenancy, which therefore will not have the market rent-only option. It is funny, however, that the pub company did not mention that last bit. It simply presented the agreement to her and said, “Would you like to sign this very attractive new lease with lower rent?”
Is BIS aware of what is going on? It has not said so or responded. If it is aware, is it dealing with the problem, and how? We need a clear announcement that any agreements made from the date on which the pubs code comes in will be subject to the market rent-only option, and that the sort of behaviour that is going on is unacceptable. That is what we want to hear from the Minister today.
Before I move on to the Pubs Code Adjudicator, I will simply say that if the Minister and her Department make the two changes that have been requested, I will announce that we are happy and will praise the Minister, her team, the Department and the Government for getting it right and for listening. All we ask is for those two loopholes to be closed and for her to criticise the way in which pub companies are cynically trying to avoid the code before it even comes in.
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear whether there are three things he would like me to do, or two?
Greg Mulholland
By the end of my speech, the Minister will be clear about exactly the things I wish her to do. Two loopholes must be removed from the code, and she must deal with the current cynical behaviour. She must clearly criticise that today, in this Chamber, and say that it is unacceptable.
Greg Mulholland
The Minister scoffs as if she does not accept that that behaviour is happening. I suggest that tied tenants around the country drop her a line to tell her that it most certainly is.
Anna Soubry
As I am sure you would agree, Sir David, it is important that nobody ever thinks there is any form of coercion, and I will do what I feel is right. In this Chamber, as in the main Chamber, we speak freely, so I do not think it is good for Members to put down conditions that say, “Ministers must condemn,” and “Ministers must do this, otherwise we will criticise.” We will have a good, free debate and then we will all make our comments accordingly.
Greg Mulholland
What a quite extraordinary comment, in the mother of all Parliaments, that somehow we are not allowed to challenge a Minister to condemn bad behaviour—what an extraordinary comment, even from the right hon. Lady. Quite remarkable.
The next thing that the Minister and her team must do is on the Pubs Code Adjudicator. Representatives from all sides of the pub sector noted as long ago as 2013 that to ensure impartiality, it would be sensible for the post to be taken up from outside the pub sector, if the role were to gain industry-wide confidence, credibility and acceptance. That is clearly the basic, essential nature of this role, yet BIS has clearly and demonstrably failed to ensure that.
Let me lay before the House the very serious issues as to the clear flaws and untenability of this appointment. The appointee, Mr Paul Newby, is a chartered surveyor and a director and shareholder of Fleurets. He clearly has a conflict of interest, and it is clearly a disqualifying conflict of interest. Fleurets is the largest surveying practice operating in the very sector that the pubs code is being introduced to regulate. Of course, the reason for that is to protect tenants from abuse by their pubco freeholders.
Mr Newby’s CV, which is publicly available—although, interestingly, it has been taken off the Pubs Independent Rent Review Scheme website—openly advertises for whom he acts. Let me list the six companies that Mr Newby is required to regulate: Enterprise Inns, Punch Taverns, Marston’s, Greene King, Heineken—which is Star Pubs & Bars—and Admiral Taverns. Who do he and his firm currently, and boastfully, say they act for? Enterprise Inns, Punch Taverns, Marston’s, Greene King, Heineken and Admiral Taverns. He clearly is conflicted and biased. Of course the Minister will say, “But he has also operated and acted for tenants,” but actually, given the nature of this appointment, that equally would mean that he is conflicted.
Anna Soubry
I will continue with these comments by people who have paid tribute to Mr Newby, and then I will give way.
The British Institute of Innkeeping’s licensee of the year, Mr Keith Marsden, has said that Mr Newby has “fantastic integrity” and will be “both feared and respected” by pub companies. Others have also welcomed his appointment, highlighting that he has worked on both sides of the industry. I support the view of Ed Beddington, editor of the Publican’s Morning Advertiser, who said that Mr Newby should be “judged on his actions”. Punch Taverns has written that as well as acting for it on a couple of occasions, Mr Newby has
“acted against Punch on one occasion, on behalf of a tenant acting against us…To our mind, this gives him good experience from all angles of what will be a challenging role.”
Greg Mulholland
It is rather extraordinary that the Minister is giving an endorsement from Punch Taverns—one of the companies that Paul Newby is supposed to regulate—as if that is a good thing. But on the RICS point, I have seen that same correspondence to a RICS surveyor and I must point out that the RICS statement was only on the evidence seen “to date”. That was then challenged, and the fact is that it had not had any submissions before the one it had from the RICS surveyor who has complained. So I am afraid that is far from a RICS endorsement, and its own clear guidance shows that Paul Newby’s appointment is inappropriate. If we need to write to RICS further, then we will.
Anna Soubry
Dumfries and Galloway. Excellent—I know exactly where he represents: Kirkcudbright. He made that point about when he was a solicitor. I do not know what work he did, but the point I was trying make was that certainly at the English Bar, and I think it is the same in Scotland with the advocacy system north of the border, a barrister may act for someone—I will be frank: I have acted for people who have been exceptionally unpleasant, usually because they had been accused of vile offences against children—and put forward their case, but that is not to endorse it in any way. Actually, the barrister might think they are some of the most despicable human beings.
Of course, that is not the position that Mr Newby will have as the Pubs Code Adjudicator. The clue is in the title: he will adjudicate, based on his experience and particularly because he has been able to see both sides of arguments. He brings great skills to the role. He will take up his appointment on 2 May to enforce the pubs code with independence and impartiality.
In answer to the proper comments made by a number of hon. Members, as it happens, on 10 May he will appear at 9.30 am in front of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. There is a good debate to be had as to whether public appointees should effectively have their appointments endorsed by Select Committees. I know that some are and some are not, but I do not think this is the time for that debate and I truly do not think that would have made any difference to Mr Newby’s appointment. He will also meet representatives from both sides of the industry in May and I hope that the hon. Member for Leeds North West will be pleased to know that Mr Newby is keen to meet him and representatives of the British Pub Confederation in his first weeks as the Pubs Code Adjudicator.
Today—very soon, I hope—I will place the Government’s response in the Library and lay the pubs code regulations. Time is of the essence, because we now know when the House will prorogue, so to get the pubs code up and running on 27 May we will lay the regulations today.
Anna Soubry
I have some very good news for hon. Members, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, I will give way.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
T4. I welcome the Minister’s reiteration last Wednesday of her and the Department’s view that they will abide by the will of the House of Commons regarding the pubs code, which currently includes an outrageous measure whereby tenants have to surrender the length of their lease for the market rent only option. To ensure that she abides by the will of the House, will she see that that measure is taken out at the final stage of drafting?
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
As I have said before, I will undertake to be true to all we promised we would do when this matter was considered last year during the passage of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, and that is what we will do. I hope that the hon. Gentleman might now adopt the words of the British Institute of Innkeeping, which has welcomed the appointment of Mr Paul Newby as the Pubs Code Adjudicator, saying he has fantastic integrity and that he will be both feared and respected by pub companies. It sounds to me like a job well done.
Pubs Code Adjudicator
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg MulhollandUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will make a statement on the appointment of the first Pubs Code Adjudicator.
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
As I announced to the House yesterday, Paul Newby has been appointed as the first Pubs Code Adjudicator. I hope the House will join me in congratulating him on his appointment. I pay tribute and say thank you to all those who applied for this important position. I also pay tribute, as I am sure the House will, to all the candidates in an excellent and very strong field.
Mr Newby will start his work full time on 2 May. He has actually already started work. He has been very helpful to my officials in making sure that we have the pub code up and running, and ready to come before this House. Paul Newby is a chartered surveyor with a particular expertise in valuation and arbitration, key skills for the Pubs Code Adjudicator. He has 30 years’ experience of the pub trade, working with pub company landlords and pub tenants. I think he will be an excellent Pubs Code Adjudicator.
Greg Mulholland
I am afraid that is not a view shared by tenants’ groups, who have been absolutely astonished by this appointment. Let us be clear, this is the appointment of someone who is a director of a company that derives the majority of its income from the very companies the legislation is intended to regulate. By his own admission—it is on his CV—he has been engaged by numerous managed and tenanted pubcos on rent review matters. In the past five years he has acted for Enterprise Inns, Marston’s and Punch Taverns. The very companies he is currently acting for are bullying and coercing tenants into signing away their rights or forfeiting pubs. His company is actively involved in selling off pubs. How can he possibly be trusted to be impartial, given that for 20 years his salary has been dependent on those he must now adjudicate on and potentially impose financial penalties on? There is a clear conflict of interest, which appears to render this process extremely dubious at the very least.
I must ask the Minister for urgent clarification. Did Mr Newby, as a director, declare how much of the income of the company he works for is derived from the companies he will supposedly adjudicate on? Will he be stepping down from his role as director of Fleurets during the four-year period? How can tenants have any confidence in this appointment? Why has a chartered surveyor been appointed, rather than someone from a legal background or an independent arbitrator? How was this process conducted? We do not know who was involved, how many candidates were involved or who made the final decision.
This is a very worrying appointment that once again demonstrates either complicity with pubco influence or an utter lack of understanding and knowledge of the issues and the conflicts in the sector. It is in danger of making a laughing stock of the adjudicator’s role. Tenant groups predict that if this appointment is allowed to stand, the statutory reforms will go the same way as the failed self-regulatory regime. It is a crass, complicit and clueless appointment, and it now needs to be properly scrutinised by the House.
Anna Soubry
That was an absolutely disgraceful set of slurs—[Interruption.] I would appreciate it if the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) would be good enough to listen. Paul Newby was appointed absolutely in accordance with the usual ways of public appointments, and I take very grave exception to any allegation that either I or anybody else has acted improperly or with complicity. As I said, Mr Newby has represented not just pub trade companies but tenants. He has 30 years’ experience effectively representing both sides. He is an experienced arbitrator, and the great skills he brings to this position do not just include his extensive experience of the pub trade industry; like many professionals, he has the absolute ability to be fair and to arbitrate fairly. The fact that he might be representing somebody does not mean he is in their pay; he can act independently.
Anna Soubry
Oh no. The hon. Gentleman does not understand how professionals work, and many of us take great exception—[Interruption.] Opposition Members would do better not to heckle about somebody they do not even know. They have not looked at his antecedents. I made the announcement only yesterday in this place at about 7 o’clock. I have no doubt that Mr Newby’s considerable experience and ability to do the job are first rate, and I take great exception to the idea that there has been an impropriety.
Enterprise Bill [Lords]
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
I will not take up too much of the House’s time. Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to debate the important new clause 10 and amendment 20, so I wish to put a few words on record, especially as the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise is in the Chamber.
I gently say that ours is a strange system whereby automatically Opposition amendments are dropped and Government amendments go through, especially because, as we have just seen with the amendment on Sunday trading, that does not always reflect what happens in the House. I strongly believe that new clause 10 would have had the support of a majority of MPs. It was not my intention to press it, however, because I had hoped to hear from the Minister that she accepted its terms. It was tabled to deal with a disgraceful loophole whereby tenants of large pub companies taking the all-important market rent-only option would have to surrender their existing lease and accept a shorter five-year lease, which would be wholly unacceptable.
Clauses 39 and 40 deal with the pubs code and the adjudicator, and I thank the ministerial team for listening to concerns about paragraph 8.12 of the draft code and dealing with them. The matter is being addressed in the Bill because of concerns about the draft code and the unacceptable nature of some of its provisions. I can tell the Minister that tenant groups are reporting some quite disgraceful behaviour from pub companies as an attempt to both game and circumvent the forthcoming pubs code, which comes in on 1 June. The Bill was the only opportunity to amend primary legislation that could then affect the content of the pubs code. Now it is a question of working with the Minister and her team to try to deal with some of these issues.
Anna Soubry
Does the hon. Gentleman welcome, as I do—and announce—the appointment as the pubs code adjudicator of Paul Newby, who I am sure will look forward to meeting the hon. Gentleman? Will the hon. Gentleman also accept my assurance that we will be true to all that was said and agreed on the Floor of the House last year when the legislation went through? Please may we work together to ensure that we have a good pubs code?
Greg Mulholland
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and their tone. The answer on both counts is yes, absolutely. I presume that the Minister’s news is hot off the press because I certainly had not heard anything about the adjudicator. It is huge news.
Greg Mulholland
That is marvellous. That appointment is now public, and it is a very significant announcement. I do indeed look forward to meeting Paul in my role as chair of the British Pub Confederation.
I take the Minister at her word about sticking to the clear commitments that were made in both Houses. However, there is a need within the pubs code to deal with what is happening now. The purpose of amendment 20 was to stop the gaming, the use of section 25, and the use of bribes as well as bullying to try to force tenants to sign up now. Pub companies are making desperate attempts to try to carry on the exploitation of the beer tie, which is what the Government have rightly legislated to stop. That behaviour now needs to be stopped, because lots of tenants will otherwise find that they are forced, bullied or bribed into signing up to new agreements that do not have the market rent-only option.
I look forward to discussing those issues with the Minister and to presenting the evidence to her and her team that is drafting the pubs code. I urge her to learn the lessons of the beer orders and not to give in to industry lobbying, or to allow loopholes that are then exploited and gamed by large companies. If that happens, the code will simply not do the very things that she has talked about and her team have signed up to. I look forward to speaking further with her about that.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Anna Soubry
This is all very useful and helpful, and I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I look forward to him putting his views into the consultation; a mix of views is critical to what I emphasise again is a consultation.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Tenants’ groups and the Fair Deal for Your Local campaign have contacted me to say that they believe that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has acted in bad faith, and that the draft code of practice for pubs does not even abide by the legislation and entirely negates the market rent only option. They will be asking the Minister tomorrow to withdraw the code, which is entirely unacceptable, and engage with them to come up with something that accords with the will of the House as it was expressed last November.
Anna Soubry
I am very disappointed to hear all that. Let me make it clear that I have stood up against planned closures of public houses in my constituency and railed against companies such as Greene King. [Interruption.] Yes, I have, and I have fought for other pubs. Hon. Members can look on my website for details. That is not the point. It is really important that we strike the right balance on this issue. I say to the hon. Gentleman that the parallel rent assessment provision, which I know he has not always been in favour of—I think he changed his mind at the last moment—is not in the code.
Anna Soubry
Shouting from a sedentary position does not help at all. The new style of politics has not quite reached the Liberal Democrat Benches. The noble Lords have made their concerns very clear to Baroness Neville-Rolfe, and as a result of my conversations with her, that particular proposal will go into the second part of the consultation.
Redcar Steelworks
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Anna Soubry
That is exactly what we will do: we will do everything we can, within the law, and bearing in mind the harsh economic realities that face Britain’s steel industry.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Teesside without steel is almost unthinkable, and I hear nothing from the Government on how they are going to replace these 2,200 jobs. The Minister has talked about small business, but it is simply not realistic to expect people to do what she has suggested without help with living costs. Will she therefore confirm that there will be help with living costs within start-up allowances?
Redcar Coke Ovens
Debate between Anna Soubry and Greg Mulholland(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Anna Soubry
These things are all in the future. I can assure the hon. Lady that everybody in the Government wants to make sure that, when the day comes and we look to buy the rails, it is British steel that is bought. I also remind her, following our debate on this, that it would be helpful if the Scottish Government made sure that in their projects they bought Scottish steel.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
My father and many others in my family are proud Teessiders, so I know exactly the devastation that this will cause to local jobs, the local economy and the UK steel industry. I also want to pay tribute to the former MP for Redcar, Ian Swales, who did a wonderful job in the last Parliament. The Liberal Democrats fully support the cross-party campaign. Will the Minister listen to the Liberal Democrat leader and immediately commission a cross-departmental ministerial committee to talk about this matter? This must happen straightaway, before these flames die out and the plant is killed forever, which must not happen. Over the next few days, she must do everything she can and look at all the possible options to save this plant.
Anna Soubry
Yes, that committee, which has already been formed, will meet this afternoon. Everybody seems to have forgotten, however, that Redcar unfortunately was mothballed under the last Labour Government and that the furnaces were restarted under the coalition Government. [Interruption.]