Wriggling off the hook

Whichever way you look at it, members of the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) have got to be pretty pleased with the Business, Innovations and Skills (BIS) committee's follow-up report on the sector, published last week.

Despite being told - yet again - that the pub industry is drinking in the Last Chance saloon; that if the industry doesn't behave this time then it will almost certainly get a smacked botty, BBPA chief executive Brigid Simmonds has pretty much got what she asked for in terms of the time needed to allow the industry to bed in its various codes of practice.

Thinking back to the BIS hearings last December there was much theatrical guffawing from the public gallery - and from some members of the committee itself - when Simmonds, asked by the committee's chairman Peter Luff how much more time the industry wanted, replied "around two years".

And yet give or take a month or two, from the time of that last evidence session to when MPs say the industry must have put in place a fairer system, that's what she's got.

There are still issues raised by the report that need to be looked at, but - and a big shout goes out to one N. Robertson of the BII for his commitment to ensuring the right things are done - for now it seems to be 'steady as she goes'.

Did the industry get off scot-free? In the briefing session for us hacks that followed the report's publication last Thursday Peter Luff stressed to me that the industry was "most certainly not off the hook".

He is probably right. While the membership of the BIS committee may well change following the general election, between now and June 2011 its new constituents will be encouraged to keep close tabs on the industry's progress towards creating a more equitable environment for all of its stakeholders.

Progress is being made, even now. A number of operators are already putting in place systems that make things fairer between landlord and tenant. Elsewhere, certain companies will need to be less arrogant and strive to operate in a more open and transparent manner.

It isn't all down to the 'nasty old landlord' though. For as long as there is a tied business model in the pub sector, tenants will have to be more realistic about their prospects and the industry they are in, or are considering getting into.

Has the BIS committee business been a "complete waste of time", as one City type put it to me last week? I don't think so.

Would the industry have made the sort of concessions it has without cajoling from the BIS committee - a body Luff admitted last week had "no clout" but which was possessed of "a moral authority"? To be honest, I doubt it.

But then frankly who cares how an industry gets to a better place for all its players, so long as it gets there?