The Future of Pubs

Roger Williams Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Karen Bradley]

I hope that I am not giving the impression that I am completely opposed to pub companies, because I appreciate that they have a place in the market, but it is important to put on the table some of the practices that are making it difficult for pubs to survive. The debate is about the future of the British pub, so it is important that we understand how pub companies and practices could be improved to save even more pubs.

Another area where pubcos may offer concessions on prices to tied landlords is in return for the landlord giving up the right to take income from, for example, gaming machines, pool tables and other such things. Gaming machines are a really important part of the landlord’s income, but many landlords find that they are forced to accept the loss of that income. The problem is that they have lower-priced beer, which they sell at a lower price so that more is sold. Their barrelage then increases, their rent goes up, and they end up no better off. It is important that we ask pub companies to look at how the rents are set, so that we can reach a point where it is in landlords’ interests to take the offers from those companies and work with them to make everyone better off.

I want to mention the Fair Pint campaign, which represents the interests of tied publicans across the UK. It has found that 67% of tenants earn less than £15,000 a year from their pubs, and that includes 50% of pubs that have a turnover of more than £500,000 a year. I can assure Members that one has to work very hard to sell £500,000 of beer a year—at £3.50 a pint, that is nearly 150,000 pints a year, or around 400 pints a day. I think that £15,000 a year is little reward for working that hard. It is no coincidence that most pubs that close are owned by pub companies, especially when one considers the effort involved and the fact that, no matter how hard one works, someone else can end up benefitting as a result of the contractual arrangements. As I have said, I accept that pubcos are here to stay and hope that, with a little action from the Government, we can make the system work better for all.

I ask the Minister to consider looking at basing rents on rateable values, or at some other system that does not penalise successful, responsible landlords. I also ask him to look at the beer tie to see whether a system could be developed that would allow a guest beer or some such incentive to be introduced. Good, well-run pubs encourage sensible drinking, so I hope that the Government will look at the sources of binge drinking, which largely are not pubs. Although I accept that there is a need to look at how policing is paid for, it will be little help to the pub trade if the responsible landlord has to make a contribution while the supermarkets and off-licences that sell at below cost price make no contribution because they close before midnight. Unlike many Government Members, I support the current licensing laws and ask that, instead of introducing new laws, the existing ones be properly enforced to ensure that those guilty of encouraging anti-social behaviour and binge drinking are targeted; that is preferable to a blanket restriction being imposed on everyone.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the way she is taking the debate forward. She will be aware of the current consultation on licensing. In my constituency, while many pubs are run well, temporary event notices are causing concern. Good pubs often seem to fail on that one little hurdle, so does she have any thoughts on how we should respond to the consultation with regard to that matter?

[Karen Bradley]

I absolutely agree. The point is that we should help the responsible landlords who encourage responsible drinking rather than binge drinking and anti-social behaviour, and we should use the law to clamp down on those landlords—we all have these cases in our constituencies—who flout the rules, encourage anti-social behaviour and are happy to sell at below cost price. As we know, people are going to supermarkets and off-licences to buy alcohol and are getting hideously drunk before they even go out. The pubs are getting the blame for that and it is not their fault. I accept my hon. Friend’s point and think that we should look at the consultation and make a robust response to it.

Finally, I ask the Minister to look at the planning laws to see how we can support the many communities across the country that rely on their local pubs and do not want to see them join the many others that have been shut. As I said earlier, the building is the most important part of the pub business, and we need to protect it to preserve that great British institution.