Pub Companies

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

That is a typically excellent and important point from the hon. Gentleman. Evidence shows that more than 50% of landlords with tied pubs earn less than £15,000 a year. That is shocking to many people who know the huge hours that many publicans put in.

I have already mentioned some challenges facing the industry, and although the health benefits of the smoking ban are widely accepted, we must recognise that it had an impact on many pubs. We have seen aggressive pricing from supermarkets as the off-trade increased its market share. As if that was not enough, the trade is now reeling from the news that I am on the wagon for January. I have not touched a drop for eight days, 13 hours and about 37 minutes.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne mentioned, pub companies have been the subject of four Select Committee hearings in seven years, and on each occasion the big pub company lobby said that this time the steps they would put in place would really make a difference. The scrutiny that the Committee has given the issue, and the tempered and responsible way in which it has attempted to work with the industry, demonstrates our Select Committee system at its very best.

The previous Government deserve tremendous credit for their empowerment of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee on this issue. They recognised the expertise and diligent consideration that went into the reports and trusted the Committee to judge whether a statutory code was the answer. It is worth reminding ourselves that throughout Labour’s time in office, the Committee’s recommendation was to give self-regulation time to work. Its verdict that the final chance for self-regulation to work had passed came in summer 2011, but until that time it never called for regulation to be brought in. Therefore, any claim that this issue should have been dealt with years ago is unreasonable because the Government were working on a cross-party basis with the Committee and the all-party save the pub group. Everyone attempted to give the industry every possible opportunity to put its house in order before going down the route of regulation.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew Griffiths]

rose—

[Toby Perkins]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), and then I will give the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) another stab.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I declare that I am a member of CAMRA. Without getting into party politics, can we agree that to compete effectively, people running a pub must be able to buy their supplies at market price, not a rigged higher price, and they must pay market rents rather than rigged rents that are higher?

[Toby Perkins]

We absolutely can agree on that. I hope Ministers hear that message—it is precisely the principle of the motion on which we will vote shortly, and I welcome the opportunity to see the hon. Gentleman in the Division Lobby. He makes the point very well.