Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of the threshold of 500 or more tied pubs for inclusion within the statutory Pubs Code.

The Pubs Code only applies to pub companies with over 500 tied tenants. The Pubs Code Adjudicator (PCA) enforces the Code. The Government currently has no plans to assess the effectiveness of the voluntary industry codes of practice governing pub-owning businesses with fewer than 500 tied pubs.

The Government is currently undertaking the third statutory review of the Pubs Code and Pubs Code Adjudicator and its report will be published as soon as practicable. The statutory review will also consider the findings of the Post Implementation Review (PIR), which analyses the Code’s impact since it came into force in 2016.