My Lords, following what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has said, I hope that the Minister will do no such thing as regards his amendment. Amendment 33W seeks to legitimise a loophole in the legislation. The pub-owning businesses are seeking to introduce a provision in the Bill permitting them to defer market rent only option in exchange for significant investment. The fact is that there is nothing now and, as I understand it, nothing proposed in the Bill to restrain pub-owning businesses from undertaking such an exercise. A pubco could simply offer an investment in conjunction with the surrender of the existing lease in exchange for a new lease and a deferred period until the next rent review. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who has tabled this amendment, agrees with that. I do not believe, and I think that most pub tenants do not believe, that there is any necessity to have this opt-out in the Bill.
As ever, the noble Lord talks about investment being urgently needed in some of these buildings. The reality is that this investment is not taking place. There is a queue of licensees and tenants who are anxious to tell noble Lords on both sides that this investment is not taking place. It would not take place if the Minister were to be unwise enough to accept this amendment, no matter how ably spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. As licensees see it at present, only pubs which accept an increase in rent to cover any investment
by the pubco receive any investment. Much of the investment, such as it is, that takes place in pubs takes place in closed pubs in order to tart them up to sell them on the market. I am afraid that pubcos have a pretty bad reputation in these matters.
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If one goes into a Wetherspoon house in any high street, one is immediately aware of who is the proprietor. Enterprise Inns and Punch never use their own names on the front of their premises. They are always, in theory at least, run by landlords and are therefore independent businesses. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, knows as well as me that the flow of investment out of the pubs business over the years, particularly as far as the two main pubcos, Punch and Enterprise Inns, are concerned, has been all one way. For every pound they have invested in their pubs—most of them not as going concerns—or the buildings that they own, which is perhaps a more accurate description, they have taken £1.30 or so out of the business in sales of properties countrywide. That is the reality of the relationship between pubcos and their tenants at the present time. For those reasons and for reasons of common sense, I hope the Minister will reject the amendment.