I certainly do. The hon. Member for Burton had the unrivalled pleasure of listening to a day and a half of debates to which I made a fairly significant contribution—I appreciate that he cannot get enough of my contributions on pubs, but he has had a significant opportunity to hear my thoughts on the matter.
Pub tenants are those who clean their pub and get it ready for the next day’s trade. They are working at the bar, handling supplier relationships, generally keeping a
cheerful presence, wearing the mask, and closing up long after most people have finished work, and all the while they know that the unfairness of their relationship means that the whole day’s work has been for nothing financially. Latest figures show that more than half of tied licensees work for less than £10,000 a year. Indeed, during the recent mini-recess I spoke to three pub tenants in my constituency who run pubs owned by the big pub companies, and none of them was taking a wage out of the business. By voting for new clause 2 and amendment 5 we can take a significant step towards preserving pubs for the next generation, and hardwire fairness into that longstanding business relationship.
Amendment 5 is simple but important and should reassure people who have concerns about these complicated issues. The Minister attempted to say that she believes the Government have found a different way to achieve broadly the same thing, but the specific wording of our amendment leaves a lot less potential for businesses to get out of saying that they are covered. To my mind, there are two ways in which the pubs code could fail to deliver what we want—first if the code is too weak and allows pub companies to comply with it while continuing unfairly to disadvantage their tenants; and secondly if we end up with a code that strikes the right balance for our expectations about the behaviour of pub companies, but is drafted in a way that allows pub companies to exempt themselves, or creates confusion as to who is covered.
Already the big pub companies have attempted to create confusion over definitions. The Government were right to acknowledge that they dropped a clanger with the phrase “tied pubs”, which in their definition is supposed to mean those on a tenanted or leased model in England, Scotland and Wales, although the code would need to be enacted separately in Scotland. The phrase “tenanted, leased” is the type of tenure clearly defined and easily established. We remain of the view that amendment 5 will provide the greatest clarification on exactly who should be covered by the Bill.
2 pm
The Minister raised the issue of a fish and chip restaurant—perhaps a Harry Ramsden’s restaurant—that could be tied for its beer. She is right to say that we can all understand when a pub is a pub and when a restaurant is not a pub, but it is important to get definitions right. Our contribution takes a significant step forward on that.
The Government have said that they do not intend to press amendment 41 to a vote, but deal with it in another place. There is a real danger that important progress may be undermined by a sense that the Government have not been entirely straightforward in their dealings. Small pub companies—family brewers and so on—had no reason to expect that they would be brought into the scope of the code. Indeed, the Secretary of State, on one of the occasions when he was able to be here, said in a debate:
“we propose to deal with the larger pub companies—those with more than 500 pubs. We will be consulting on that”—
he was specific on what the consultation would be about—
“but that is the approach we intend to adopt.”—[Official Report, 9 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 353.]
Our Opposition day debate in 2014 referred to the 500 pub limit as the point at which measures for pub companies should be introduced. It was therefore a major shock for family breweries, microbreweries and other small pub-owning companies to find not only that they had been brought within the scope of the Bill, but that many onerous requirements would be visited on a group of businesses that had been given every reason to expect they would not be involved.