Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Brian H. Donohoe Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

As will become clear during the debate, one subject on which almost the entire House agrees is that pubs are part of what makes Britain great and that we should do all we can to support them. The series of votes that we expected to face today—they are disappearing in front of our eyes—mark a historic, watershed moment in the licensed trade.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

Surely at the very kernel of any amendment is the fact that we are losing pubs every week right now. As a consequence, the Government clearly need to focus much more on that aspect of the problem, so that it does not continue to recur, as it very regularly does in all our constituencies.

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point and precisely expressing the passion which so many of us feel for the pubs in our communities. It is precisely because so many of us are concerned about the changing face of the pub trade in our communities that the issue of the contribution of pub companies to pub closures has been so fiercely debated. It is because so many of us believe that the model under which pub companies operate is the cause of many of the pub closures that the Opposition have brought this matter to the House on many occasions, and many other Members have made that case. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this debate is all about the strength of the industry, but it is also about having a sense of what exactly is being done to support it, and the question of pub companies is a key part of that debate.

I suspect that much of this debate will be about what divides Members, but there is real value in reflecting on what we are all agreed about, including the fact that this Government Bill contains provisions for a pubs code. The very fact that we are debating an issue that for so long seemed destined to elude this Parliament is a tribute to the dogged work not just of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, but of Parliament itself. Today still has potential to be a great day for this Parliament.

In reflecting on the contribution that Parliament has made on this question, notwithstanding my reservations about how the Government are handling this incredibly important debate, I want to pay tribute to the many hon. Members whose work has brought us to this point. In no particular order, those who deserve great credit include the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey). They have both chaired the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, which produced diligent research on this issue in 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In 2011, the Select Committee finally came to the conclusion that the industry had had enough time to get its house in order and that the time had arrived for a statutory code with an independent adjudicator, open market rent assessments and a free-of-tie option. It is disappointing that it has taken more than three years to get from the Select Committee’s conclusion to the Bill before the House. It will be an even greater disappointment if we have to move away from the Bill and are told that there will be a further review in two years’ time to debate the whole thing again and decide whether we then need the free-of-tie option. What is more important than anything else is that Members do not let the opportunity to take real action through the Bill pass us by.

I want to acknowledge other Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) was the pubs Minister who empowered the Select Committee to be the arbiter of when the time for action had arrived. The hon. Members for Leeds North West and for Northampton South (Mr Binley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) led a cross-party campaign to ensure not only that we had a pubs code, but that it would make a real difference for tenants and create competitive pressure on pub-owning companies to ensure that they offered their tenants a fair deal.

I also want to recognise the Minister’s contribution. Notwithstanding what I said about how the Government have handled this Bill and how she has been badly let down on a Bill that appears to be changing in front of our eyes for what appear to be political considerations, the fact is that she did at least end the prevarication—at least, that is what I wrote down in my speech—that we endured under her predecessors. If this was Prime Minister’s questions, I would be told off for writing my script in advance, but that helps when we are going to be on our feet for a while.

To be charitable for a moment, at least we are here to debate the pubs code. The fact that the Minister’s predecessors constantly pushed for review after review and did not take action, while she came forward to say that there would be something in statute, is a source of tremendous credit. It is a shame that she has unfortunately been forced to come to the Dispatch Box to propose a review in two years’ time, with all the uncertainty that that will create. However, she has at least made an effort to get something on the statute book.

There are many other such hon. Members, but the strength of this campaign has been due to the fact that the push inside the House very much reflects the broad coalition in favour of the measures outside it. The case that we and other hon. Members are making today has been supported by a tremendous range of organisations, almost all of whom come under the Fair Deal for Your Local banner.

Just listen, Mr Deputy Speaker—not that you would ever not listen while in the Chair, but perhaps you will do so with particular attention—to the breadth of organisations that support this case. Such breadth makes the case more powerfully than anything else. The organisations include the Federation of Small Businesses, which does not usually demand regulations or that the business relationship between two parties should be put on a statutory footing; the all-party save the pub group, which is so ably chaired by the hon. Member for Leeds North West; the Campaign for Real Ale and the Fair Pint campaign; the trade unions Unite and the GMB; and the Guild of Master Victuallers and the Forum of Private Business.

There are also two support groups, Justice for Licensees and Licensees Supporting Licensees, which were set up to support licensees affected by what had happened in their relationship with the pub company. Such licensees have often been bankrupted or are facing bankruptcy as a result of having chosen to pursue their dream of running a pub. Who would have thought that a support group needed to be set up for people who have chosen to pursue a particular profession or work in a particular industry?

In some ways most significantly of all, the Punch Tenant Network, made up of tenants who run pubs owned by Punch Taverns, has come out in support of new clause 2. Those tenants’ business success hinges to a large degree on the strength—or weakness, depending on how they see it—of their relationship with their pub company, and they are saying that the hon. Member for Leeds North West and 90 other Members are right that the code should be put on a free-of-tie basis. If the network believed the scare stories that the industry is putting about—that the proposed changes will lead to an increase in pub closures, less choice for punters or increased unfairness in the industry—it would hardly be calling on hon. Members to support the new clause.

The House has heard in recent years from literally dozens of Members who are desperately trying to support pubs in their communities that are under threat—all victims of the great pubco scandal.