Three MPs plan pubco workshops

By Gemma McKenna

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Fair pint Peter mandelson

Hoey: keen to get help licensees
Hoey: keen to get help licensees
Three London Labour MPs — including a serving minister and an ex-minister — are to hold workshops with local licensees about how pubcos affect...

Three London Labour MPs — including a serving minister and an ex-minister — are to hold workshops with local licensees about how pubcos affect them.

Transport Minister Sadiq Khan (Tooting), former Sports Minister Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), and Battersea MP Martin Linton are involved.

The event has been organised by the anti-pubco Fair Pint group and will take place at a pub run by a campaign member. Fair Pint said the plan is to "discuss the value of the pub to the local area and how the pubco model is putting that at risk".

"When hosts have met their MPs, there's been a lot of positive feedback," said a spokesman. Based on the event, Fair Pint is considering workshops across the country.

In an hour-long meeting with her constituent, Enterprise host Steve Slatter at Westminster, Hoey said she would raise questions in Parliament about pubcos and "see what we can do to raise this as an issue and speed up the process of trying to get some reaction from Government to the Committee report". Hoey would also raise it with Business Secretary Peter Mandelson.

She also plans to get in contact with other licensees in her constituency to see how she can help. She told Slatter, of the Coach & Horses in Clapham, the tie is "a restraint on trade".

Hoey said: "It's pretty shocking really. The fact that you pay £125 for a barrel of Foster's beer when you could go down the road, and get it for substantially less. It just doesn't seem sensible."

"You're busy and doing well, but it is unfair isn't it?" she said, adding: "It's clearly not going to be fixed by being reasonable and nice."

"Tell Fair Pint I want to get involved."

Hoey is also the latest MP to join Greg Mulholland's Parliamentary Save the Pub Group.

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