John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)
Greg Mulholland
The all-party save the pub group is entirely behind my hon. Friend’s community campaign and will offer him any support we can. The simple answer—I hope we will hear this from the Minister—is twofold. First, as my hon. Friend will know, the great news is that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is consulting on finally dealing with the property scam that is the pubco model, which includes Enterprise Inns. I hope that we will hear later this year that that will be dealt with. Secondly, I hope that we will start to get it through to the community pubs Minister—my hon. Friend and I had debates when he used to be the community pubs Minister—that although the provisions in the Localism Act 2011 are positive, we cannot accept a planning framework that allows such behaviour. We must have a change, so that pubs cannot become supermarkets behind communities’ backs and without any consultation with those communities. That cannot be right.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman would almost have had time to consume a pint in the course of his intervention.
Robert Neill
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I understand my hon. Friend’s point, and I am grateful to him for his intervention. You will know of the importance that all communities attach to their local public house, Mr Speaker, and this behaviour is particularly reprehensible. It has denied people the opportunity to step in, unlike what has happened at other places nearby, such as the Baring Hall public house near Grove Park station, where notice was given and the community was able to get the asset listed. That opportunity was denied in the case of the Porcupine as a result of the underhand behaviour of Enterprise Inns.
The situation has been made worse by the behaviour of Lidl. It is becoming apparent that the company’s business model is one of acquiring public house sites and turning them into supermarkets in a secretive and predatory fashion—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) says that this is about collusion, and I have to say that a lot of people in Mottingham would agree.
As I have said, the situation has been made worse by Lidl’s behaviour. Representatives of the company came to a public meeting organised by the Mottingham residents association and, to put it charitably, gave misleading information about the status of the planning application. They claimed that they already had permission to demolish the public house, when in fact they had not even made an application. Since then, although they claim that they wish to consult the community, they have done no more than board up the public house. They want to demolish it so that, in effect, the pass will have been sold and it will be impossible to rebuild a pub on the site, but I am pleased to say that Bromley council will have to consider a section 31 application. I am sure that it will deal with such an application in an appropriate fashion. My hon. Friend the Minister cannot prejudge planning cases, but I would simply observe that I believe that there are very strong planning grounds for deciding that this is not an appropriate place for a supermarket.
Lidl’s poor behaviour did not stop there, however. Until I secured this debate—as well as earning a rebuke from you, Mr Speaker, for making an intervention on the matter at business questions that was perhaps a little less crisp than I try to be—Lidl had refused to engage at senior level with me or any other elected representative. Lidl is a privately owned, German-based company, and it is now buying up pubs around London and turning them into supermarkets. Ironically, there is a Lidl just 10 minutes away from this site, in Eltham, as well as branches of Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Sainsbury’s within easy reach of it.
I find it extraordinary that, having misled residents over the status of the application, Lidl took no steps to correct that. It put in an application, then forgot to pay the fee for about seven days, which says something about the company. When I sought a meeting with a Lidl board director, the company refused to give my office the names of its directors. We had to go to Companies House to find out who they were. It refused to give me the names, and refused to meet me until it heard about the publicity generated by this debate. That is a contemptuous way in which to treat the public.
There are two messages for people in all this. First, they should know how Lidl is behaving in this case. Secondly, the Campaign for Real Ale is actively promoting its “List your Local” campaign, and my message to anyone with a pub owned by Enterprise Inns in their community is that they should get it listed as an asset of community value now, because they cannot trust Enterprise Inns not to sell it from under them without telling them. That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. As things are, a demolition application has now been submitted and will have to be considered by Bromley council. I am happy that it will take whatever steps are appropriate, but this case demonstrates an attitude that is damaging for the community in that area.
This is not the only occasion on which Lidl has behaved in this way. In Warlingham, it destroyed the former Good Companions public house. It knocked it down, but it has yet to submit an application to redevelop the site. It demolished a former police station in Dartford as soon as it acquired it, and the residents of Dartford have had to live with a derelict site for the subsequent 15 months. That is predatory behaviour. It is unacceptable and unbecoming of a public company. I hope that the directors on the board of Lidl will realise the reputational damage that their conduct is doing. I say that more in hope than in expectation, but we can at least use the engine of publicity to flag up their behaviour and that of Enterprise Inns. The Minister might be aware that an application has now been submitted for the Porcupine public house to be listed as an asset of community value, and I hope that it will give it some protection in due course.