Martin Rawlings: the dogged campaigner

Martin Rawlings has fought the pub trade's corner with steely determination over the past few decades. He talks to Phil Mellows about what makes a campaign succeed.

Martin Rawlings is working on it. Well, he'll be working on it right after lunch at the Riverside pub and probably a sneaky fag on his way back to the British Beer & Pub Association's (BBPA's) Vauxhall HQ.

Rawlings is director of pubs and leisure at the BBPA, the man behind the scenes doing the hard work that can determine whether a campaign succeeds, fails or, more usually, achieves something in between.

"It's easy to run a campaign, easy to jump up and down about something, but you need days, weeks of meetings with Treasury people and you need proper economic research. You can say what impact 5% VAT will have, but you've got to prove it. And we've started that job.

"It'll take a lot of work to convince the Government. There's no possibility of it being in the next Budget, and it probably won't be in the one after that, either. But we can lay the groundwork now, get together all the background that the Government knows diddly squat about.

"The difference VAT makes is quite staggering. It puts 6p to 7p on a pint in the pub but only 1p in the supermarket. Increasing the rate just makes the gap between on-trade and off-trade even wider.

"If we can get it down to 5% on food it would be a start and it would be good for jobs. Apply it to alcohol, too, and it will bring more people back into pubs, drinking in a supervised environment. Or it could be for beer only. There are always halfway houses. Nothing is not changeable. It won't be a five-minute job, but we can do better than 20%."

Rawlings spends much of his time up the road in Westminster and across the Channel in Europe talking to politicians and civil servants.

"That's where arguments are won and lost. It's frustrating. Often you have to tell them what the law says. Why don't they just read it? Politicians here only worry about what the Daily Mail is going to say.

"Yes, it's a long slog, and I suppose I'm dogged. I don't like being told I can't do something."

Quiet determination​

There doesn't seem much glory in it for someone like Rawlings. He is one of those determined people with strong opinions who are at the same time quietly-spoken.

He doesn't expect to be carried aloft on the shoulders of massed licensees for his successes, but he is proud of his achievements.

At the top of his list is the 2003 Licensing Act. He says it was "a huge battle. We were told many times it couldn't be done and that we should settle for 11.30pm closing".

And 2009's victory in the courts over fees charged for background music by PPL was another big one.

"We were told to give up on that, too, and we ended up getting an average 300% rise down to 10%."

Rawlings joined the Brewers & Licensed Retailers Association (BLRA), as the BBPA was then, briefly, known, on the beer side. He arrived from the food industry as an expert in yeast whose experience in brewing consisted of making bootleg booze while working in Saudi Arabia in the early 1970s.

"When I started at the BLRA it was like I'd walked back into the past. I thought 'a couple of years here and that's it'."

But the old Brewers' Society was being forced to adapt to a world that the Beer Orders were radically changing, and Rawlings and his boss at the time, David Long, were asked for their ideas on how the organisation should be structured.

"We put together a plan to restructure on the basis of what became known as the twin pillars — beer and pubs. Before that there was only one member of staff dedicated to pubs."

So, in effect, he got the job he created. And Rawlings is a great defender of his corner, a great believer in the pub, especially as a place that provides an answer to anti-alcohol hysteria.

"It's unbelievable the pub is still seen as a problem, and not the people drinking to get out of their heads. That doesn't happen in most pubs.

"I'm not saying pubs are the 'home of responsible drinking' — I don't like that phrase. Pubs are places where you want to make a good party happen and a bit of booze helps that along. But they are places, too, where you can control irresponsibility.

"A lot of pubs have improved immeasurably. At JD Wetherspoon a third of its sales are food. It wasn't like that 10 years ago. That's the message we need to get across. We're not the alcohol industry, we're the hospitality industry."

Coalition​

That may not be easy, either. Ten months into the coalition and Rawlings is still trying to "get under its skin".

"It's difficult, it's changing all the time. What does it really want? To support the industry or oppress it? It's a question I'm continually asking. It's a struggle.

"To be positive about it, though, there is more willingness to listen to what the industry has to say.

"My job is as much about dealing with people who surround ministers, the officials who work for them, as talking to the politicians themselves, and there's been a sea-change in the way they deal with you, what they say.

"They are less centrally controlled and on the new licensing reforms we have had some success in getting them to listen.

"But they still don't understand the law of unintended consequences. The late-night levy is ridiculous.

Why should a country pub that stays open late pay for what's happening in a town?

"They need to understand what's really going on in pubs. They are where people get together. It doesn't happen in Starbucks.

"But all the focus is on the town centre, and we're getting remedies for those problems that tend to affect everybody."

Government is just half of Rawlings' worry, or course. There's also the industry to contend with, the challenge of "keeping people on board and doing what they say they'll do". "I suppose we ought to talk about the tie," he ventures reluctantly. It turns out we're both equally bored with the subject.

For Rawlings, though, the agreement with the pubcos is another partial success story.

"The tie could have been hugely divisive, but the code of practice means we survived and kept the mediation process alive. And I think it's a good solution, though I realise not everyone would agree with me.

"It's easy for some to say the tie should be abolished, but there's a part of industry that's not going to give it up and destroy the basis of its product. You just have to get as much as you can out of that situation.

"Pubcos have to improve the quality of people running their pubs. If they don't do that they won't be around in five years. So it's good there are more fences to jump.

"Some will respond better and quicker than others, but a lot of time and effort has gone into this and we have seen a change in attitude. They are being more flexible."

It raises another difficult issue — trade unity. Rawlings is refreshingly honest on this.

"We have to face the truth that we represent different interests — and who's going to give their interests up?

"There are issues we can agree on and unite around, and VAT is hopefully one of them. Mind you, someone will find a reason to split from the campaign, you wait and see," he jokes. Probably jokes.

My kind of pub​

"I have to say my daughter's pub, of course, the Old Crown in Ashton, Northamptonshire — a Charles Wells tenancy she's run for 18 months. I like a pub that's strong on community, where you walk in and people say hello — and then goodbye when you leave. My daughter's good at that.

"I'm not interested in a huge choice of things to drink, but a pub has to have a real ale in good condition — and some good-quality food, which means no scampi!"

Key dates​

• 1972 — Martin Rawlings graduates from Reading University with a degree in food technology

• 1975 — Completes PhD in yeast and joins oil firm Aramco in Saudi Arabia

• 1980 — Works as a consultant company secretary and finance director for a project risk management business

• 1989 — Becomes quality director in a meat-processing firm