Merit in Harold Wilson brewery plan

Government documents from 1975, released under the '30-year rule' last month, reveal a plan by former Labour PM Harold Wilson to save small breweries from takeover by taking them into public ownership. As 2005 saw Gale's, Jennings and Ridley's lose their independence, Wilson's proposals are worthy of consideration.

The documents show Wilson was keen to launch a programme called 'Little Things Mean A Lot'. It would have saved the traditional pint measure and nationalised breweries under threat of takeover.

Using words that still strike a chord today, Wilson said: 'Much resentment is caused when a local brewery is taken over by one of the anonymous national breweries, thus reducing choice. It is our intention to use our powers to make sure that local breweries do not disappear.'​

Wilson had created a new ministry, the Department for Prices and Consumer Protection, to act as a watchdog over such issues as monopolies and price fixing. But his plan to take threatened breweries into public ownership never got off the ground because of civil service opposition.

A Treasury spokesman said: 'I think it would be extremely difficult to justify the use of public money for this purpose'. ​The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food, in perhaps one of the most absurd statements ever made by a government department, declared: 'The information available to us suggests the risk of takeovers of local breweries are likely to be slight over the next year or two.'​

In fact, the late 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid increase in brewery takeovers and closures. The problem did not go away. In the 1990s, 44 breweries closed, many of them independent concerns. It's a problem that has continued into the 21st century.

Could Wilson's plans have worked? First, it is important to dismiss the notion that public ownership or nationalisation is a course of action taken only by left-wing governments. It was, after all, a Conservative government that carried out one of the most far-reaching examples of public ownership in recent history.

The Government of Ted Heath in the early 1970s nationalised Rolls-Royce when the car company collapsed. Public ownership lasted until a satisfactory new owner was found. Were it not for Heath's action, the most famous name in British car production would have disappeared.

I am not suggesting that breweries similarly taken into public ownership should stay in state hands in perpetuity. As with Rolls-Royce, suitable new owners or partners from the private sector should be found.

Column by Roger Protz.

But if Wilson's proposals had been given the go-ahead, it is possible that such famous and well-loved breweries as Matthew Brown, Hull, Oldham, Buckley's, Darley's, Devenish, Higsons, Shipstone, Simpkiss and even Wilson's (no relation) might have survived.

Simpkiss, a revered Black Country brewery, was a particularly grotesque example of what Ted Heath, in a different context, called 'the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism'. It brewed delicious and popular beers sold in some 15 pubs in the Black Country. Nobody wanted Simpkiss to close, save for the giant regional brewery Greenall Whitley of Warrington, which in the mid-1980s wanted to add the Simpkiss estate to its own and force its keg beers on drinkers. In an act of pure vandalism, Greenalls poured the last batch of Simpkiss beer down the drain rather than let it reach drinkers' lips.

So bad was the Greenalls legacy in the Midlands - it had previously taken over and closed Davenports and Shipstone - that the assault on Simpkiss should have led to Government action.

In the 21st century, we urgently need a strategy to save breweries and safeguard consumer choice. Public ownership is only one option. Other proposals could include government funds for management buy-outs and co-operatives of workers and consumers.

Unless such plans are discussed seriously, there is a risk the regional brewery sector will continue its decline.

One thing is certain: Tony Blair will reject such radical suggestions out of hand. Perhaps I should have a word with David Cameron...