What companies told the pubco inquiry:

The pubcos have married monopoly of supply and its attendant price iniquities to a system of leases and rent reviews which are disadvantageous to the tenant. People who work hard and succeed quickly find their efforts are penalised because it is the practice of most pubcos to increase their rent disproportionately as the pub gets busier.

Jeremy Brunning, Brunning & Price

At one of my pubs I am paying a rent of £31,000. This is up for it's five-year rent review and we have been told that it will increase to £65,000. Most pubs are run by small one-off landlords who have probably invested their entire savings into buying a lease and, ultimately can't afford the cost involved in fighting.

Chris Gordon, Chrysalis Pub Company

In the immediate area, a number of Punch lessees are facing financial ruin and pubs are changing hands too frequently to provide stability for that outlet. Indeed, when discussing a particular outlet that had changed hands at least five times over recent years with a BDM from Punch, I was told that it did not matter as long as the rent was being paid. And if the new incumbent failed to maintain rent payments they would simply find somebody who would. I believe this to be totally amoral. New people entering the industry are placed in a financially dangerous situation from the outset, with, in some cases, no chance of long-term survival.

Ray O'Hara, former free-trade sales director, Whitbread and Tom Cobleigh board member

Rent reviews are often negotiated and settled without too many problems but tenants and lessees do feel the power resides with the landlord who can normally (afford) to be bullish and afford the risk of going to arbitration or independent expert. By and large we feel that the average retailer fears the process and does not believe it to be fair. The process could be regulated for disputed rent reviews by forming an industry panel consisting of a property expert, a landlord and a tenant/lessee of some standing (as sits on the Punch forum).

Interpub

The average period of occupancy for our lessees is five years. More importantly, the majority of those who move on do so for positive reasons. These include moving to a new pub (often one owned by the same pubco) having successfully assigned their lease or choosing to retire. The notion that we seek to drive out our retailers by unreasonable rent increases is wide of the mark. We can't benefit from an interruption to business whilst seeking new tenants, still less by closing a pub completely.

Giles Thorley, Punch

In October 2001, (Punch) sent Kelham Island a document entitled Cask Ale Invitation to Tender. Kelham Island is required to pay a fee to have beers listed. The fee is per brand so if hosts wished to purchase more than one of our beers (it) would be a multiple of £750. No other company has ever asked for a fee like this.

David Wickett, Kelham Island

It'd be very much to the benefit of the tenants of the pubcos that own over 2,000 pubs if you re-establish the right of the guest beer provision for the supply of cask-conditioned beer and allow these tenants the right to purchase this guest beer directly from brewers.

Richard Kershaw, Joseph Holt of Manchester

Heavy tactics ensured that Punch achieved £35,000 plus RPI per annum for the next five years (at a rent review). Their main argument was that I was paying too small a percentage of turnover as rent. (I was) penalised for hard work and success by both considerably higher rent and considerably higher "wet rent" as a result of increased sales volume. They have it all ways.

Alan Dunton, Easybars, which had been paying £25,000 under an Allied Domecq lease