Bill Esterson
Main Page: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)Department Debates - View all Bill Esterson's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 1 month ago)
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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.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Minister’s so-called consultation scrapped the promised parallel rent assessment, so I am pleased to hear that she has put that back in. Will she do the same with all the provisions that were offered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe in the other House on 28 January and make sure that the vast majority of pub tenants are offered a fair deal when it comes to the market rent-only option? If she does not, she will be acting in bad faith and she will have betrayed the trust of thousands of pub tenants up and down the country.
Anna Soubry
As I keep saying, it is a consultation so we will listen to everybody. It is important that we strike the balance fairly between both sides of the argument, and that we understand and accept that there has been a great deal of movement to the betterment of tenants over the past few years. We must recognise that. I know from my own constituency work that pub companies such as Punch and Greene King have hugely changed their views to the benefit of tenants, and that must be welcomed.