The chairman of the Business, Innovation & Skills Committee (BISC), Adrian Bailey MP, said the Committee is “upping the ante” on the Government to pressure it into action over the implementation of the statutory code on tenanted pub companies.
Earlier this week BISC published a new report on the statutory code calling for the Government to bring forward a bill on a statutory code at the “earliest opportunity” or risk an ” unacceptable failure”.
Speaking to M&C Report’s sister title the Publican’s Morning Advertiser, Bailey said the committee was concerned about the timing of any legislation.
He said: “We are concerned that the Government could delay matters so that it is not brought to the house in this Parlimentary session. Then the next session they might have an excluse that they can only prioritise urgent legislation and then it will be left until the next Government. This will effectively be a way of kicking it into the long grass.”
“We want to put down a marker that this is an issue that has had so much consultation and so much scrutiny that there really is no excuse for not moving on this quickly to implement things and we expect it to be brought forward this session.
“This is an issue that this committee and its predecessor committees have worked on for nearly 10 years and despite foot dragging Government intertia and hostility we are almost there. We do not want to see the fruits of all out labours over the years go or be just quietley sidelined. We want to see this happen and that is why we are upping the ante on this.”
In the report the committee came out firmly in support of a range of options for the legislation. It said it agrees that the code should have a mandatory free of tie option. However, it issued a note of caution claiming that “clarity on how this will be enshrined in law is necessary”.
The report also called for “flexibility” in the proposed statutory code for pub companies so it could be applied to smaller tenanted pub operators at a later date. Currently the Government proposal covers pubs with over 500 non-managed pubs. The BISC called for this current threshold to only apply to tenanted and leased operators and not their free-of-tie counterparts.
The BISC said the enforceability and legal status of the company codes of practice has remained unresolved and is said it also supported the view that the Adjudicator which will oversee the Statutory Code should be given the full suite of powers, including the power to fine.
The report praised the work of the Pubs Independent Conciliation and Arbitration Service and Pubs Independent Rent Review Service as “positive developments” and urged the Government to ensure they are retained in the new statutory framework.
