Licensees have a 'tough job', pubs minister admits

Community pubs minister Bob Neill has acknowledged licensees do a "tough job with long hours" and said the coalition wants pubs to "succeed".

Speaking at the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers' annual lunch in London yesterday, Neill offered plenty of words of reassurance to the audience of more than 1,000 industry guests.

"I hope you won't see the coalition as being an impediment to the trade, that's not what we want to be," he said.

"We want you to be profitable and make a return for the Treasury, and we want you to succeed," he said.

On the licensing reforms, Neill said he understood there was a "balance to be struck".

"We don't want to get to the stage where the restrictions are onerous," he said.

Neill, who was on jovial form and revealed himself as a West Ham supporter, said he recognised running a pub was a "tough job with long hours".

On the banning of restrictive covenants, Neill echoed comments he made in a Westminster Hall debate last week, saying he was looking at the Sustainable Communities Act as a way of stopping the practice.

And on below-cost selling, the minister said the government remained committed to finding a "workable system" to implement a ban.

Earlier the ALMR's chairman Tim Sykes said industry lobbying on the licensing shake-up had had "some effect".

But he added: "There is still a long way to go and lots of issues to address." He also suggested more funding would be needed to lobby against the changes.

Sykes admitted the "perception" of the industry was still poor. "Let's get rid of the bad apples, but let's do it ourselves," he said.

Meanwhile, three winners were announced in the ALMR's operations mangers of the year awards.

BDM of the year was Carloyn Matthews of Daniel Thwaites; BDM of the year "rising star" was Daniel Wilkinson of Greene King and area manger of the year went to Anthony Davies of McMullen and Sons.