Here’s to Healey!

The Government’s announcement today that it is to reform beer ties is the biggest shake up of the pub trade since Mrs Thatcher’s Beer Orders in 1989.

The Government has faced down the large pubcos and backed the recommendations of the Business Innovation and Skills Committee and a recent ippr/CAMRA report to reform tied pub leases.

Most pubs in this country are owned by large pub companies and thousands of them have tied leases, which means that licensees have to buy all their beer from their pub company rather than on the open market. There has been mounting evidence that tied tenants have been suffering because they have to pay more for their beer than free of tie houses.

The Government responded by appointing John Healey as Pubs Minister – and he has announced a 12 point action plan to support the struggling pub trade. The Government is giving the trade a year to reform itself – by offering tenants the choice of a tied or free of tie lease, and by allowing tied tenants to buy in guest ales from outside their tie. It has said it will legislate if action is not taken.

This is strong stuff – we now need clarity from all parties that they will support this approach, whoever wins the election. The signs are positive: Peter Luff the Conservative chairman of the BIS committee has been a leading campaigner for change, as has the Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland. There is a growing political consensus that the relationship between the pubcos and their tenants needs to change.

Healey has also announced funding to allow communities to buy their local pubs to help keep them open – and changes to planning rules that will make it more difficult for developers to close pubs and change them to other uses. This is important: ippr research shows that the pub is the most important place where local communities mix and get together, outside people’s own homes. These measures are a much-needed shot in the arm for the great British pub. I’ll drink to that.

Rick Muir, senior research fellow, ippr