I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for not pressing amendments 41, 43 and 44. However, I want to put on record my surprise that the amendments were tabled by the Secretary of State as recently as 14 November, and the explanation was:
“This amendment, and amendments 43 and 44, reverse amendments made at committee and bring pub-owning businesses with fewer than 500 tied pubs back into the scope of the Pubs Code.”
The Secretary of State has continually led the House to believe that it was his intention not to include small family brewers with fewer that 500 tied pubs in the statutory code. When the Bill appeared, it included those small family brewers, with top-heavy bureaucracy.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who is no longer in her place, my right hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Sir Hugh Robertson), my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford (Richard Fuller), for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), and the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) and his colleagues on the Opposition Benches for seeing sense and supporting my amendment, which would simply have put back into the Bill what the Secretary of State has always led the House to believe he intended to have in the Bill.
3.45 pm
I listened carefully to what the Minister said today. I would like her to confirm, with a clear yes—I will give way if she does not intend to speak again—that if the
Bill goes unamended to the other place, and an amendment is tabled there to reduce the number to 350, the wording will be either “350 tied pubs, excluding managed pubs”, or “350 short-term tenancies and leases, excluding managed pubs”. The industry can have no faith in a Secretary of State keeping his promise, after what we have seen over the past few months, and indeed the past few days. It needs and is seeking that reassurance from the Minister today.
I thank Members for listening to this contribution. I completely agree that small family brewers should get some reassurance that they will see in the other place what they were led to believe would be included in the Bill, but is not.