Greg Mulholland welcomes Government review of self-regulation deal

Yesterday in the House of Commons minister Jo Swinson said that Secretary of State Vince Cable has written to all the organisations involved in the deal and will make a decision on any action based on their responses.

Swinson said any action taken would be “evidence based” but confirmed that she expected further discussions would be required with the industry.

Last year, the Government failed to implement the Business Innovation and Skills Committee recommendation of a statutory code, instead saying the current industry framework code will be strengthened and made legally binding. It also agreed that a Pubs Independent Conciliation and Arbitration Service and Pubs Advisory Service would be launched.

Mulholland said: “It is particularly pleasing that this time round the Minister has stressed the importance of taking an evidence based approach, something the Department failed to do when they attempted to address the issue a year ago, as revealed in the Save the Pub Group Freedom of Information request.
 
“It is absolutely farcical that it has now been a whole year since the publication of the Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee Report on pubcos, which highlighted the need for a statutory code to redress the crux issue within the pub sector and that is that pub owning companies operating on a leased model take more than is reasonable from pub turnover in both inflated beer prices and rents, making it difficult or impossible for the licensees to make a living, sometimes making hardly anything at all in profit is taken by the pubco, and we still have no code and no agreement on drafts.