RICS: pub rent guide should be mandatory

New guidance on rent setting should be made compulsory across pub companies, a senior figure at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has told MPs.

David Rusholme told the Business, Innovation & Skills Committee that failure to adhere to the upcoming new RICS code will lead to sanctions against chartered surveyors, but when asked if it would against business development managers, he said: "I don't have the power to make that happen."

It lead to accusations from Lindsay Hoyle MP that the code was a "toothless tiger" unless pubcos follow it as well. Rusholme said: "If there are some mandatory ways of making this happen we will welcome that."

He added: "If we can carry everyone along in the process there's a good chance of them adhering to it."

Earlier Rusholme said there's "less certainty about what information is provided" by pubcos. Committee chairman Peter Luff said pubco calculations on rent vary from "exemplary" to "shocking".

Rusholme also promised there would be a "common sense check" in the code to ensure licensees get a decent wage.

He was pressed on whether pubcos, through the British Beer & Pub Association, had held RICS in an "arm lock" to make the code favour them.

He replied: "Not at all. We will not be bound by the influence of one party."

He added that the code should be accessible by both lessee and lessor (pubco) and would be implemented in April or early May, following a consultation.

Luff started the session by announcing that Business Minister Kevin Brennan had written to him saying the Government believes it is "too early" to respond to the committee's damning report from the summer.