Heritage Public Houses Bill
Debate between Meg Hillier and Anna Dixon
Dame Meg Hillier
I make a heartfelt commitment to the hon. Gentleman that if his Bill progresses today, I will certainly work with him on that. Let us wait and see what happens in that respect. The challenge of a Bill of this length is that is quite complex to amend, because there are a lot of moving parts that already cut across, as I have touched on briefly. I will go into a bit more detail on that, but I will come back to the point about the vibrancy of modern pubs and breweries as they are making a really big difference in my constituency and up and down the country.
In planning terms, we had arches that were, unfortunately, sold off under the previous Government. When Network Rail was classified as a public body and therefore came under public spending rules, there was a gap in funding that previously would have been raised from private markets. To fill that gap, the Government of the day sold off the family silver, selling the railway arches that Network Rail owned—in my area, we also have ones owned by Transport for London—including a large percentage of them in my part of London and in parts of south London, including maybe in the Minister’s constituency. The Arch Company has a job as a landlord, and it inherited some very interesting businesses, which I will touch on in a moment.
Anna Dixon
In Shipley, we have an old tramshed, which was very successfully converted and is now the location for the SALT brewery, as well as a very popular bar, restaurant and gathering place. Again, it is not strictly within the definition of a heritage pub in the Bill, but the tramshed itself is a heritage space where SALT is now producing fantastic, excellent local beers, which I encourage all hon. Members to sample when they visit Shipley.