Pub landlords plan new protest

Campaigners fighting for a new deal for pub landlords plan a peaceful protest in London in December.

Justice for Licensees claim publicans tied to buying beer from pub owners are going bankrupt in large numbers.

Pub companies deny the claims. They say they provide a low-cost entry to the pub industry for committed licensees unable to afford a pub of their own.

UK pubs closed at a rate of 52 a week in the first half of the year - a third more than the same period in 2008.

"As each month passes, more tenants are going out of business"

The day of protest is being organised by former licensee Inez Ward who ran the Mavericks pub in Newquay for seven years.

The pub closed in March this year after the electricity was cut off over her failure to pay an £11,500 bill. She was declared bankrupt in May and evicted in July.

Pub Closures

Inez told the Politics Show South West: "As each month passes, more tenants are going out of business. There must be change.

"Some pubcos have been vociferous in the press over the level of support that they are giving their tenants.

"Many of our members feel that there is no support and that the pubcos are failing to listen and act on the concerns of tenants and consumers, upon whom the pubco business model is built."

The date for the peaceful protest march will be Monday 7 December 2009, subject to approval. Inez now runs Justice for Licensees from her home in Truro. It has 380,000 members.

The number of pubs in the UK has dropped by 2,377 in the past year, to a total of 53,466. Pub closures have cost 24,000 jobs.

"The beer tie has, for decades, provided a low cost of entry to the pub industry"

Earlier this year the Business and Enterprise Select Committee raised a series of questions about the relationship between pub companies and their tenants.

The report called on the government to act urgently and refer the matter to the Competition Commission.

But the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) says it has found no evidence that ties between pub companies and landlords are harming competition in the pub sector. It said it did not consider that supply ties contributed to higher prices.

Baroness Thatcher

Its inquiry followed a complaint from the Campaign for Real Ale over beer ties. CAMRA says it will now be urging Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to overturn the OFT's decision.

Punch, which with 7,600 pubs is Britain's biggest operator, said it hoped the industry could "move forward constructively".

Meanwhile Enterprise, which has about 7,500 pubs, said that the beer tie had, for decades, "provided a low cost of entry to the pub industry for committed, entrepreneurial licensees who are unable to afford to buy a pub of their own".

The campaigners have also written to Baroness Thatcher, in power when the Beer Orders led to the creation of pubcos in 1989, to urge the Lords to take action on pubcos and the beer tie, despite the Office of Fair Trading giving them a clean bill of health.

A spokesman at the Department for Business told the Politics Show that it was studying the OFT's response.

He said the department would be working closely with the Business and Enterprise Committee, the new Independent Pub Confederation and other key stakeholders to ensure that their good progress was built on over the coming months.

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