Industry must try harder, says Marston's Alistair Darby
Speaking to the Business, Innovations and Skills (BIS) Committee last week Marston's Pub Company boss Alistair Darby admitted relationships between landlord and pub tenant needed to improve for the future health of the industry as a whole.
Sitting before highly sceptical BIS members - who had already asked British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) chief executive Brigid Simmonds "how can we trust you this time?" - Darby accepted the industry had to change.
"The relationships highlighted by the Business & Enterprise Committee report are simply not sustainable. We have to do better in this area and we recognise that we as a company have to earn things like the [right to implement] the tie," he said.
The industry must - and would - do a better job of responding to politicians' concerns than had been the case after the 2004 Trade & Industry Select Committee inquiry, Darby also conceded.
He accepted that some pub companies had reacted badly to the BEC report, adding he had had some "fairly strong words" with one, Enterprise Inns, over the tone of its response.
Despite this assurance several members of the committee voiced concerns whether the industry could deliver on promises made to reform its practices.
Ian Stewart, Labour MP for Eccles, was sceptical about claims made by pub companies and brewers regarding the relationships they had with their tenants. "It is often called an equitable relationship but is it?" asked Stewart. "You appear to push customers to the edge of acceptability, or even over it."
Darby said the industry wanted successful people running pubs. "We can only have a successful pub business if the people who operate our pubs can make a decent living," he pointed out.
The Marston's executive said his company wanted hard-nosed business people running its pubs, rather than those who had an emotional ideal of operating one.
He said: "We've got to stop people taking on a pub based on emotion. I don't care if you've drunk in one of our pubs all your life. I care about whether you can make a success of it commercially."
Darby said he was encouraged that prospective tenants were checking out the company and its support structure.
Defending Marston's implementation of a beer tie with its tenants after criticism from Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle, Darby said it was the price of beer and not the tie itself that was the issue. "We care about our beer being sold in our pubs. The tie is a fundamental part of our DNA," he said.
Darby added that the BBPA's new code, yet to be published, would make a difference to how companies operated. "It will be good for business," he added.
