The Big Interview: Andrew Griffiths MP, chair All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group
Walking in the corridors of power may seem quite glamorous, but the walk to MP Andrew Griffiths’ office seems to take forever. “It depends on how important you are as an MP as to how close you are to Parliament,” laughs Griffiths, after the long winding staircase finally finds its way to his office.
Griffiths arrived on the scene just over a year ago as the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group (APPBG), the biggest MP interest group in Parliament with more than 300 members. It was almost inevitable that Griffiths would take the lead role after serving a stint as vice-chairman — he is the MP for Burton and Uttoxeter, boasting major brewers such as Marston’s and Molson Coors in his Staffordshire constituency. And he loves real ale and pubs.
“I am from Dudley in the Black Country and I was weaned on Hanson’s Mild as it was my dad’s favourite drink,” he says.
As the youngest of five children, Griffiths has nephews older than him and he spent his youth socialising with this extended family in working men’s clubs and pubs in the Dudley area. This was where he formulated his views on the importance of the community pub. “The thing I remember is that the pub was a place for all ages and there would be people of my age, people of my parents’ age and old people, all socialising together.
“One of my earliest memories of drinking in the pub was taking a girl on a first date and standing at the bar trying to impress her. Waiting to get served, I was tapped on the shoulder by a young man who was six inches taller than I was, who then said: ‘Hello uncle, are you going to buy me a pint?’”
Journey into politics
While his love of the pub is easy to fathom, politics was also in his blood from an early age. His dad was a local councillor for 34 years in Dudley and Griffiths always helped him out with his grassroots community politics. While on the corporate ladder working at the Halifax bank, his father died, and he decided it was time for a change. “I packed my job in, handed back the keys to the BMW and went off to work in Brussels,” he says.
It was purely by chance that he knew someone who got voted into the European Parliament, and was offered a job. The planned two-month job extended to five years “because policy just got into my blood”, he says. And it was while living in Brussels that he developed his love of beer. “They have enough beers there to have a different beer every day of the year, and in that five years I was trying the range. I loved how they celebrate beer over there,” he says.
He built up a reputation, so much so, that he got a telephone call and the person at the end of the line said: “This is Theresa May. I need a new chief of staff and someone suggested that you might be a person worth talking to.” Ten days later he had moved to London.
He worked as a “bag carrier”, as he calls it, for the current Home Secretary, while she was in opposition for two-and-a-half years, assisting her through the licensing reforms of 2003.
He then worked a stint with MP Hugo Swire, who was the shadow minister for culture, media & sport and when Swire got reshuffled he ended up working for MP Eric Pickles. He was Pickles’ right-hand man when he was shadow local government minister and party chairman.
“Eric famously said that I knew where most of the bodies were buried because I buried most of them. I had a great relationship with Eric and I worked for him up to the general election in 2010 when I got elected,” explains Griffiths.
However, his path to being an MP wasn’t exactly a smooth one. He stood three times for the local council, once for Parliament in Dudley and once in the European elections, and got hammered every time. “I once got into a lift with Boris Johnson when he was an MP and he introduced me to someone as: ‘This is Andrew Griffiths, he fought Dudley and Dudley fought back’.”
However, in 2010 he won the Burton and Uttoxeter constituency with a 9% swing and turned a 2,500 Labour majority into a 6,300 Tory one. It was only a year later that he took on the mantle of chairman of the APPBG after already serving as vice-chairman of the group before that.
Uniting the industry
The swift rise in the echelons of the APPBG came from a deal with Nigel Evans MP when out on the terrace of the Strangers’ Bar in the House of Commons. Evans was campaigning to be deputy speaker and Griffiths promised to help him get elected if Evans would help him become vice-chairman of the APPBG. The rest is history as they say. “It’s not quite a Granita pact, but it was sealed over a pint of real ale,” he says.
When Griffiths took over the top role at the beer group he had clear views on what it should be doing for the industry and pushed for it to be a stronger lobbying organisation. However, he has some strong words for the brewing trade and claims he is “frustrated” that the industry is not more united. “I try to unite MPs behind the brewing industry, yet the brewing industry struggles to unite itself,” he argues. “The industry tends to find ways to disagree, rather than put the differences aside and argue for things that are good for everybody.”
He is a strong advocate of minimum pricing, as long as the Government does not implement it as a stealth tax, and believes it can work to stem the price discounts prevalent in the supermarkets. “It (supermarket pricing) destroys brands, even those that are supposed to be ‘reassuringly expensive’. So, as somebody who wants to support brewers, I didn’t want to see supermarkets do to the brewing industry what they did to the dairy industry.”
Last-chance saloon
Griffiths has found himself facing criticism that he represents only the views of the pub companies, especially in the wake of the Business, Innovation & Skills Committee report. However, he recognises that the relationship between the pubcos and tenants dramatically needed to change, but is not a supporter of legislation.
“The question at the back of my mind has been what do we do, will it mean more or fewer pubs closing? My worry was that the revolution, as proposed by some, would actually have meant hundreds if not thousands of pubs closing very quickly. Of course, I also have to declare that I am the MP that represents Punch and Spirit. However, I don’t think I have been uncritical of the pubcos in saying that they really are drinking at the last-chance saloon.”
He supports calls for an independent review, but thinks that, to implement this within six months, is just too soon for the industry to bed in the changes.
“I am not convinced that everyone in the industry has woken up to what will happen if they don’t make the changes,” he admits. “One of things I am loath to do is get into personal battles with any particular chairman or company. I don’t think personalising this argument adds anything to the debate.
"I was particularly concerned about the debate we had in Parliament during which the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) was painted as some shadowy mafioso-like organisation, with a sinister hand on the shoulder of the minister. If the BBPA was that effective at lobbying we might not be in the mess we find ourselves in now.”
The future
And what of the future? Has he ambitious plans to be a minister, or even the next prime minister?
“I don’t think anyone would ever expect the next prime minister to have been born in Dudley, so I think that is unlikely. I know what it is like for the ministerial car not to turn up anymore because I have seen it happen to others, so I am not particularly motivated by those things.”
However, despite his love of politics, he says that one of his proudest moments came last year when he got elected to open the Great British Beer Festival and judge the Champion Beer of Britain. “I said to myself ‘I know my dad would be very proud’.”
Key dates:
1970
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, Andrew Griffiths attended High Arcal School in Dudley before working for the family engineering business and Halifax bank. Worked in the European Parliament in Brussels for five years, before becoming chief of staff to a number of shadow Cabinet members, including Theresa May and Eric Pickles
2001
Unsuccessfully contested the seat of Dudley North in the general election
2004
Stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the European elections in the West Midlands
2010
May — elected as the MP for Burton and Uttoxeter
2010
October — elected to the political & constitutional reform select committee
2011
Elected chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group
