This Queen’s Speech is the last chance for the Government to redeem its pledge thousands of struggling publicans and millions of pub loving drinkers to legislate to reform the pub companies.
After four reports into the state of the industry over nine years, the BIS Select Committee and its predecessors consistently concluded that reform of the relationship between the pub company and its tenants was crucial to the industry’s survival. If the industry could not put its own house in order then Government would need to do it.
The last report in 2011 concluded that due to the ’glacial’ progress this time had come.
Since then the Government has wobbled between asserting that a voluntary code would be sufficient then admitting it wasn’t working and then committing itself to a consultation prior to implementing legislation.
Since the conclusion of the consultation a deafening silence! In the back bench debate of January this year I was unable to extract a commitment from the Government that it would be in this Queen’s Speech.
At last on Tuesday, 24 hours before the Queen’s Speech, the Government has responded to the Select Committee report with a raft of measures designed to strengthen the industry code and the rights of tenants to appeal.
It falls short of the key demand to give all tenants a free of tie option coupled with an open market rent review. The implication is that there will be legislation that will be proposed within the Queen’s Speech.
Labour has committed itself to the latter. This will no doubt be a debate when legislation is put before Parliament. As is often is the case the devil will be in the detail. Alongside my fellow committee members I will be probing this as legislation progresses.
