It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. This is an excellent debate, which is timely, coming just before the Budget, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) has said.
St Albans is an extremely high property value area. It is a desirable area and its proximity to London makes it a destination for many families fleeing London for a better quality of life. That puts pressure on pubs in St Albans. Many of them are in small listed premises, in heritage buildings. The pubs struggle to survive in a
world where big is beautiful and they generate footfall. St Albans is where the Campaign for Real Ale has its headquarters and it has a strong voice within the pub industry. I pay tribute to the landlords and owners of historic public houses in St Albans for the work that they do to keep their brand alive. It is not enough to say that pubs can survive in this day and age without considering the strains put on them. The historic Boot in French Row is a small, quaint, gorgeous pub that went through trials and tribulations trying to expand its kitchen because it has historic listing.
Similarly, we have the Fighting Cocks, one of the oldest pubs whose name derives from the history that encompassed it. Seeing historic pubs with historic pub names is what draws tourists into St Albans.