Trade mediation should not rule out beer tie probe, warns Fair Pint
A leading Fair Pint campaigner has described the industry's mediation process as "extremely welcome" - but warned it should not be used as an excuse for avoiding a referral to the Competition Commission.
Karl Harrison, speaking today at the Fair Pint summit - Calling Time on the Tie: The Way Forward - in Westminster, said the market needed deregulation from those who he claimed were manipulating it, namely the pubcos whom he and other speakers aruged were property plays.
A number of speakers at the meeting heavily criticised Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns over the issue of transparency in areas such as rent review negotiations.
Harrison applauded moves by trade groups to bring about low-cost rent reviews as long as this "provides real justice not cheap injustice".
Also speaking was Lib Dem MP John Pugh, who called the current situation involving pubcos a "broken economic model".
Mike Benner, CAMRA's chief executive, said his organisation was in line with both the mediation process and with the goal of a super-complaint to the Office of Fair Trading.
He said the complaint would try to demonstrate market failure, with regard to things such as beer prices and pub closures.
Lord Razzall, the Liberal Democrat peer, meanwhile urged the anti-pubco faction to continue to press the government to refer the industry to the Competition Commission.
"I asked Lord Mandelson in the [House of] Lords last week whether he was prepared to refer the matter to the Competition Commission. While his answer was non-committal and anodyne, it led me to believe he might refer it, since it is when he answers a question rudely that it usually means 'no'."
Razzall said that anything that could concentrate the government's mind on winning votes in the coming months would be worth pursuing, and the future well-being of the British pub should be the subject of such a focus.
He also said it was "hugely important" that groups like Fair Pint and other similarly-minded organisations submitted "proper evidence" to the Competition Commission, as and when it sat.
