Heritage Public Houses Bill
Debate between Mike Wood and Anna Dixon
Mike Wood
As I said, it all depends on how long the Crown Prosecution Service takes to decide whether there is evidence to proceed. The last update I had was about six weeks ago when it said that it was still working on the file and was unable to provide a timeframe. Of course, the community is impatient, and the longer that this drags on the more cynical and frustrated people will be. While clearly the investigation cannot be rushed, we also cannot have any unnecessary delays. I say today, as I said on day one, that the local community is not going to let that go. The enforcement notice that the hon. Gentleman spoke of is legally binding, and the Crooked House must and will rise again from the ashes.
Yet as we pursue justice through the courts, we must ask ourselves the fundamental question: how on earth did the system allow this to happen in the first place? Fighting drawn-out legal battles after the wrecking ball has done its worst is nowhere near good enough. When an irreplaceable 18th-century landmark is destroyed, no amount of enforcement notices can properly recreate the original historic fabric of a building that has grown organically. We have a duty to fix the law so that no other community is robbed of its heritage in that appalling manner.
That is why I have introduced the Bill, which is backed by the Campaign for Real Ale and its 145,000 members as well as the Countryside Alliance and the “Save the Crooked House” campaign. Every single clause of the Bill is designed to close some of the legal loopholes so blatantly exposed in Himley.
Had the Bill been on the statute book in 2023, the Crooked House may still be standing today. It would have made a difference in four specific and possibly decisive ways. First, the Bill would put an end to secret sales. In 2023, the local community had no idea that Marston’s had put the Crooked House on the market until contracts had already been exchanged. It was sold off to buyers who clearly had no intention of running it as a pub. By the time the community found out and tried to do something about it, it was already too late. Clauses 1 to 4 would place a statutory duty on each local planning authority in England to compile and maintain a register of heritage public houses, covering venues that are at least 150 years old or which possess recognised local heritage significance, including heritage interiors.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for introducing this interesting bill. My understanding is that local planning authorities already have powers to create local lists for buildings of local historic importance, and those can include heritage pubs. I am working to try to save the Old Glen House, one of our heritage pubs, and that has been suggested to me as an avenue for doing that. Does he agree that there is already provision under current rules?
Mike Wood
That provision is helpful but insufficient, partly because it relies on proactive actions by local authorities, which, as in the case of registering assets of community value, are often taken only once there is a clear threat, by which time it may be too late. Those local listings also do not offer the full protection that heritage pubs need. In particular, they offer little to no protection for heritage interiors.
We are finding that some pub interiors—particularly those from the interwar period and immediately after the second world war—are becoming rarer and rarer. Many of the things that people identify as typical of British pubs are being replaced by, shall we say, more generic dining layouts? It is really important to preserve those features of local heritage, but local listing does not typically help with that, nor does it offer the criminal penalties for unlawful demolition that I think are appropriate.
Clause 9 would provide that at the moment an owner intends to sell a registered pub, they must formally notify the council, which must in turn notify local Members of Parliament, ward councillors and the public so that secret backroom deals behind closed doors would become impossible.
Secondly, the Bill would introduce a genuine community right to buy, extending the positive changes the Government have introduced through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026. Because the sale of the Crooked House was shrouded in secrecy, neither the community nor responsible pub operators had any real opportunity to put together a viable bid to keep it trading before it was sold. Under the powers of clauses 9 and 10, during the first 12 months on the market a registered heritage pub could be sold only if the buyer were to enter into a legally binding covenant guaranteeing that it would operate as a pub, or if it were sold to a community group. Community buyers would be granted up to 18 months to complete the purchase.
Heritage Public Houses Bill
Debate between Mike Wood and Anna Dixon
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
I am delighted to speak in this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) for bringing the Bill forward. I do not think any of us in the House would question his motivation. We heard the passion with which he spoke of the terrible destruction that befell the Crooked House pub in his constituency; I think many of us remember hearing about it in the news and the events that followed.
As we have heard in so many fantastic contributions from Members across the House, we all share the desire not only to preserve the heritage pubs that have been at the heart of our villages and communities for centuries but to ensure they continue to thrive for decades or, we hope, centuries to come. As we have heard, these pubs are so much more than small businesses. They are community institutions. They are places where memories are formed. They are places where history is made. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) is claiming one of the pubs in his constituency as the birth of the enlightenment. It is very tricky for me to match that, although we do have very interesting and historic pubs across Shipley.
Pubs are meeting places and places of history. For me, pubs are where I gather with my family—my mum and dad, my brother, sisters, nieces and nephews—on family occasions, around a large table, often enjoying a Sunday roast with large portions of Yorkshire pudding, washed down with one of my favourite locally-brewed pints. It is difficult to mention what my favourite beer is, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley)—I am assuming that his favourite beer is Greene King, because he mentioned it a lot in his speech. I will have to mention several of my favourite local brews: Saltaire Brewery, the Goose Eye Brewery in Crossflats and the Bingley Brewery in Wilsden all produce excellent craft brews.
Those local independent breweries also need relationships with the local heritage pubs. Sometimes the tied pubcos prevent those independent breweries selling their beer in the pubs that are almost across the road. We need to look more broadly at not only the heritage pubs but the relationships between independent pubs and breweries, to ensure that the whole industry thrives.
Shipley is home to many charismatic, historic pubs that welcome locals and visitors alike. I have, because of the generosity of colleagues, been able to briefly mention a few of those historic pubs, but I will come back to one or two and give more detail about them. The Malt Shovel in Harden is a grade II listed building that lies next to one of two Roman roads that run through the village. It is believed to have been constructed as early as 1550, and as we have heard from other Members, it had a number of historical uses, including a farmhouse, a coaching house, a courtroom and a prison.
There does seem to be some connection between pubs and prisons, so I better watch out when I am next down there enjoying a pint that somebody does not decide to put me in the cell. The pub has a cell room from that time, complete with a barred window. Thankfully, I have thus far avoided that when I have been down there. That is partly because I would rather sit in the pub’s spacious beer garden, particularly after having done door knocking, which I tend to focus on during a summer blitz of the villages.
The Malt Shovel is as cosy inside, with a warm fire in the inglenook fireplace, which is reported to date back to the time of William and Mary. In the Bill, I am interested in the point about how we preserve the interiors of the pubs. As everybody has said, the character of historic pubs is not only the external façade but the interior, whether that is the inglenook fireplace, beams or other features. I would like to understand how we can preserve the interiors of heritage pubs.
The second pub that I briefly mentioned and will come back to because it is pertinent to the Bill is The Old Glen House in Baildon. It is a beautiful old building, dating back at least 500 years. At the moment, my constituents and I are very worried about its future. It has had a few years of intermittent closures, and following the departure of the recent tenants, it remains closed. It is currently missing a roof.
At my recent townhall question and answer session in Baildon, one of my constituents raised the matter of the pub. When pubs stand empty, they are at higher risk of arson—I realise that in the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire’s case there is still a pending court case, but we also see it elsewhere. The building is neglected, and the lack of roof could lead to internal damage. My constituents are rightly concerned about the impact on the building of its standing empty, and about its future.
The Old Glen House is a popular pub. It stands on the edge of Shipley glen on Baildon moor. It is a fantastic spot that people love to come to. They come on the train to Saltaire, they go through the historic Roberts Park in the Saltaire world heritage site. They catch the Shipley Glen Tramway, which is an incredible feat of Victorian engineering from 1895—it used to come up to Shipley glen where there was a fairground. That is where the pub is, and it is a fantastic local asset. I will be working with local residents, learning from some of the examples we have heard in the Chamber today of how communities have come together, but the first thing is to put pressure on the pubco to ensure it makes the necessary improvements, brings it back to its former glory and protects this valuable, community pub, the Old Glen House.
We have heard a lot about community assets and some of the challenges for communities to do that. That is one thing we need to try to understand. It is fantastic—I am a member of the Co-operative party as well—that the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 gives new powers for communities to buy assets. Communities face a lot of obstacles, as we heard so eloquently from my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours).
Civil Service Pension Scheme: Administration
Debate between Mike Wood and Anna Dixon(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) on securing this important and timely debate. The situation is an entirely unforced error by Capita, and it has caused real and significant financial distress to thousands of former public servants—people who dedicated their working lives to serving this country. The people affected are individuals who planned responsibly for retirement and relied on the integrity of the civil service pension scheme, but have been left anxious, frustrated and, in many cases, desperate.
Like other hon. Members, I have had several constituents contact me to say that they have been left without any income to fall back on. Mark contacted Capita several times at the start of this year without any reply at all, and he now finds that none of the links in the previous letters and emails from MyCSP work anymore. There was no transition.
In many of the cases reported by colleagues from across the country, those affected are suffering missed mortgage payments, unpaid bills and the indignity of having to borrow money simply to get by. That should never happen to anyone who has served the public in good faith.
Anna Dixon
The hon. Gentleman sets out many of the hardships and challenges, as other hon. Members have in this debate. Will he take some responsibility? Under the previous Government, when this contract was let, these problems should have been foreseen and the contract never awarded to Capita.