I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on introducing this important debate and the Backbench Business Committee on granting it. I have seen quite a lot of the workings of the pubco trade in my role on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee during work on our various reports. It has become quite clear that many large pub companies are really property-owning companies. The fact that their properties tend to be pubs is rather a sideline from their point of view. The companies are heavily leveraged and in debt and are looking at their assets to see what is the best way of working the building assets, rather than running them as pub chains, as we would like them to.
I am pleased that the industry will be regulated and that the Government have taken up the recommendations of my Committee and are introducing an independent adjudicator to ensure that rules are followed to prevent the exploitation of the remaining landlords in the pub trade, who have been suffering. This is another issue and might, in a sense, be an unintended consequence of cracking down on the exploitation of tenants. Companies
are now looking around and saying that it would be much easier to sell the property off or rent it out to a supermarket and to make more money that way.
Two particular closures in my constituency of Castle Point have caused enormous controversy and upset. The King Canute pub on Canvey served its last customer in May 2014. The pub, one of Canvey’s most historic buildings, was originally called the Red Cow, but during the devastating flooding of 1953, in which many Canvey residents sadly lost their lives, it was at the doors of the pub that the water stopped—hence its renaming. It also served as a base for the armed forces, from which they helped residents during the floods.
I spoke to the landlady about a week before the news broke about the closure, and asked, “How’s business?” She was doing an awful lot of good stuff. I had attended several events that she had held for local charities in the pub and lent my backing to them. When I spoke to her, she was very positive and upbeat; so the closure came as an enormous surprise, not only to her and her staff but to customers and local residents.
The pub is in an historic building, highly valued by the community. It is intrinsic to the history of Canvey Island, unusual and quirky. We have been told that it is likely to become a Co-op but, despite assurances, there is no guarantee that we will even keep the building, which is beloved of residents and is a treasured community asset. So it is heritage, as well as community benefit and service to several charities, that the pub offered. The law gives no protection against demolition, other than the good will of the owners. I am lobbying to get the building listed as a heritage asset, even though it is not in itself very historic or special. However, it is an old building for Canvey and it is very well loved and particular to the island.
The same fate occurred to the Silver Jubilee pub on Canvey. As its name suggests, it opened in 1977 to commemorate the Queen’s silver jubilee. It was a very well liked local pub. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) mentioned knitting circles and groups, including a local knitting group, met regularly at the Silver Jubilee and they are now deprived of a place to go. When the area in which the pub stands was laid out and developed, the pub was considered necessary; it was integral to the plans for the area and there is no other pub nearby for local residents.
The closure came as a great surprise because there was no evidence that the pub was not successful. It seems that it simply was not turning sufficient profit for the big firms, who have been able to convert it to a mini Morrisons. Not only have they converted it to a supermarket and put flats above it, but they have now applied for permission to build houses on the adjoining car park.
A wise man—Ray Howard, the long-serving and very smart local councillor, who has served Canvey Island continuously since I was six months old—pointed out that if a single application had been submitted to turn the pub into a supermarket with flats above and to build houses on the car park, the change would have been a large enough to trigger some section 106 funding—development money for the community. However, because the owners did not need to get permission for change of use for the actual building, they have managed to get through a loophole. That funding could have been used to put in a slip road for what many residents find a very
difficult junction and that would help them get out into heavy traffic. We are trying to obtain that slip road none the less, but without that funding.
I reiterate what hon. Members have said. Pubs are community assets. They serve the public in a variety of ways. They have plenty of community uses and some have strong historic value locally. They are currently left with incredibly little protection. I believe they should be recognised as community assets as a default position—not one that requires a long, elaborate process, which residents are often not aware of and do not realise that they could have followed until it is too late. I urge the Minister to look at the matter again, so that such a long process is not required to establish pubs’ value in the future.
Obviously, if a pub is not profitable, that is a different issue. In the cases that I have described, however, the pubs seemed perfectly profitable—although they possibly would have been more profitable if they had not been tied in to a pubco—but they had immense value in the current property market. That is the cause of the problem. It really is time that the Government looked at this, because their other efforts to help the public house trade, by removing beer duty and so on, will mean nothing if pubs are simply turned into to supermarkets.
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