We must solve pub crisis together

You've got to hand it to Licensing Minister Gerry Sutcliffe. Not content with upsetting the Prime Minister once, he's risked the wrath of his boss a second time by

re-quoting from the Dummy's Guide To Overturning Tax Rises. For last week, at the Community Pubs Inquiry, brave man and true pub champion that he is, Sutcliffe urged the trade to unite in a single-voiced bellow of protest at four years of inflation-plus-2% duty rises on alcohol.

It's not really the done thing for a junior minister to encourage lobbyists to reduce Her Majesty's Government's tax take. When he did it the first time, just after March's Budget in an interview with the Morning Advertiser, he was crucified in the media as an off-message anti-Brownite and was lucky to survive with his job intact.

Happily for the pub trade, Sutcliffe has not only survived — he's still pointing the way forward and telling the industry to get its act together.

Nearly four months on from his first blast at pub trade disunity, it's even more urgent that trade leaders respond. Hundreds more pubs have closed since March, thousands more licensees are that much closer to throwing back the keys and several big name companies are trembling ever more precariously on the brink of bankruptcy.

The industry has never been in a bigger hole, and it's high time the fightback started.

Easy to say, yes. But in a crisis, leaders come to the fore. Sadly, our industry seems short of hitters of sufficient political calibre to make Government take us seriously.

Sutcliffe has already made it clear Government will not bail out the pub trade. So what should we be asking it to do? First, announce that the future tax rises have been scrapped. That would help restore a little confidence, for starters.

Next, overturn the decision to charge business rates and council taxes on empty properties.

After that, some form of rate relief has to be devised for community pubs. If small brewers can continue to enjoy considerable benefit from the public purse through progressive beer duty, why shouldn't pubs?

Then it's a question of Government acknowledging that pubs are a real boon to society and not pariahs. It just doesn't help to encourage people to go out to the pub when ministers, Gerry aside, seem to hold their noses if they have to talk about pubs.

One way forward would be for the Department for Culture, Media & Sport to give its blessing to the exciting initiative we announce this week, Pub in the Park.

This industry-uniting event is a template for how we can work together to showcase the wonder of pubs. It's the first consumer-facing event for years and will do the trade a power of good. Let's hope everyone — even Gordon— can draw inspiration from it for a better future for our pubs.