MPs call for pub reform

Pub reform finally on the menu?

'Last chance saloon' for pub companies

The British pub trade must address the “serious imbalance in power” between pub companies and lessees, or face new laws forcing it to reform.

That was the warning from the cross-party Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) Committee, which yesterday released the findings or a third investigation into practices blamed for stifling competition in the industry..

“The industry must be aware that this is its last opportunity for self-regulated reform,” warned MPs in the report.

“If it cannot deliver this time, then government intervention will be necessary.”

The committee gave pub companies until June next year to reform the beer tie, arrangements in which lessees are required to buy their beer from their parent companies.

The report urged the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to look more carefully at CAMRA’s so-called “super complaint” about beer tie abuses. The OFT is looking again at the issue after CAMRA appealed the initial dismissal of the complaint.

CAMRA welcomed the report. Chief executive Mike Benner said: “The large pub companies are now in the last chance saloon. The pub sector has had long enough to deliver self regulation and failed.

“They either voluntarily reform to ensure a fair deal for consumers or risk potentially punitive intervention from the competition authorities and government.”

The British Beer & Pub Association’s (BBPA) framework code of practice - promising greater transparency, more information and a low cost independent rent review panel - is “a modest step in the right direction”, said the report. It added that pub companies should build on this with their own codes.

The BBPA said: “We are determined to address the issues raised in the BIS report head on, by raising standards and putting into practice the new framework industry code.

“Companies will apply both the letter and the spirit of that code in their own individual company codes within the next few months.”