In the limited time available to me, I shall, as chair of the all-party save the pub group, restrict my comments to the pubs section of the Bill. That is not to say that there are not many excellent measures in the Bill, but I want to concentrate on those relating to pubs. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is no longer in his place, as I wanted to put on the record my thanks to him for listening, doing what was clearly needed and legislating to deal with the flawed and discredited business model that has done so much damage to the valued institution of the great British pub.
I have said very vocally that BIS and the Government got it badly wrong in 2011 when they decided to go down the self-regulatory route yet again, even though it had clearly failed, as was shown by the Select Committee. I give every credit to my right hon. Friend and to Ministers for looking at the issue again, listening, acknowledging that the problems were still there and in many cases getting worse, and finally acting. I pay tribute to my colleagues in the all-party group and to the Fair Deal for your Local campaign, which was formed in April last year, bringing together the Federation of Small Businesses, the Forum for Private Business, the Guild of Master Victuallers, the GMB, Fair Pint, the Pubs Advisory Service, Licensees Supporting Licensees, Justice for Licensees, the Campaign for Real Ale, and Licensees Unite, part of Unite the union, which represents more than 2 million members and many, many licensees up and down the country as a strong voice for the pub sector.
We in the campaign and the all-party save the pub group warmly welcome the fact that we will have legislation; that we will finally have a statutory code of practice. I
and the two vice-chairs of the all-party group have written to the Secretary of State—which is a good job because I will not get the chance to outline my position in the limited time available now—to make clear the Bill’s flaws as we see them.
First, there is no apparent mechanism by which the Government will deliver their clear commitments to fair and lawful dealing and—crucially, to pubs in companies that have 500 pubs or more—to a tied licensee not being worse off than a free-of-tie licensee. It is not clear how the parallel rent assessment can do that or how the adjudicator would enforce that.
Secondly, it is a huge flaw that the enhanced code will apply to companies with 500 tied pubs. That makes no sense at all. This is about market share, as with the beer orders. As we have said clearly and consistently, it must apply to companies with 500 pubs or more of any kind, but within that it must apply only to leased and tenanted or franchised pubs, not tied pubs. That is crucial; otherwise, as we have seen, the large pub companies will simply put people on free-of-tie agreements, or so-called free-of-tie pricing, and put their rent through the roof, even further above market level. Clearly, that will take more money, and the problem will not be solved.