Pub Companies

Debate between Toby Perkins and Adrian Bailey

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

I almost got carried away there, then my hon. Friend announced that his pub was in fact closed. However, the fact that his determination and vigour will ensure that it soon reopens gives us all a sense of enthusiasm and excitement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), a former Enterprise Inns landlord himself, will have the honour of winding up the debate. I also want to salute the many other hon. Members who are here today and who have previously raised this issue in debates here or in the press, or joined campaigns in their communities to highlight the problems caused by aggressive pub company behaviour.

In September 2011, the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee’s fourth review of pub companies finally settled on the view that only a statutory code with a mandatory rent-only option would put the pubco relationship on a fairer footing. I was therefore disappointed by the suggestion in today’s Government amendment that Labour should have regulated this issue before. The Government will know that it was precisely because the Select Committee wanted to give the pubcos time to get their house in order that they were given a final chance in 2010, with a timetable that the Secretary of State supported when he first came into office.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather strange that the Government are using the previous Government’s decision to abide by a Select Committee recommendation as an excuse to ignore the current Select Committee recommendation?

[Toby Perkins]

My hon. Friend’s intervention gives me an excellent opportunity to put on record my gratitude—and that of the whole House and the wider coalition supporting the reform—for his work as Chairman of the Select Committee, which has led the way on this issue. I entirely agree that it is odd that, with such a large body of opinion in favour of the reform, it has been so difficult for the Government to support the recommendation that the previous Government were behind and that this Government said in 2011 that they would support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is a debate that I never thought we would need to have again. Last year, we were given assurances that a statutory code would be introduced; a year later, there is still no sign of it. The motion reflects the sense of exasperation felt by Labour Members—and perhaps privately by many Government Members—about the lack of progress on this issue.

[Toby Perkins]

Does my hon. Friend share my fear that we will potentially be back here another year to have yet another debate? I am pencilling that into my diary.