BIS: Information demanded over BBPA deal

The group has submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the department calling for details of which ministers and officials met with the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA).

It is also demanding information on who had sight of the Government response, prior to its publication. It has called upon the Government to halt plans to push ahead with the self-regulation package, until these important questions have been addressed.

The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee (BISC) report called for a Statutory Code of Practice and an adjudicator to manage the relationship between pubcos and tenants.

However, business minister Ed Davey supported self-regulation and agreed a deal with the BBPA and industry partners that promised a “toughened” self-regulatory regime.

Save the Pub Group has raised concern about the process by which BIS worked with the BBPA and industry partners, what organisations and individuals outside BIS contributed to the drafting of the Governments response and that the Independent Pub Confederation (IPC) - which represents the other side of the dispute - had no part in the negotiations.

Chairman of the Save the Pub Group Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland said: “What we know already is that the BIS cooked up a deal with one side of this long standing dispute behind the backs of the other side, which is a shoddy way to operate and renders any so called solution, as well as being clearly not an ‘industry’ one, also illegitimate.

“The BBPA, who represent the pubcos, has clearly had far too much influence on the response and what we do know, because they foolishly issued their press release before the actual publication of the response.

“Save the Pub Group is now demanding to know not only what meetings BIS held with whom, since the publication of the Select Committee report, but also exactly who saw any drafts of the response before it was published and when they had them.

“Already there is a complete lack of confidence in the Government’s woeful response on this hugely important issue, but if it turns out that the very people who have been exposed as causing the very serious problems in the pub sector have been heavily involved in creating that response, then people will accuse the department of collusion.

“We need full answers and quickly and until then, the Government should announce a halt on any further moves towards putting the current inadequate codes on a legal footing.

"At the very least, they must now get all the Independent Pub Confederation organisations around the table and afford them the opportunity to start discussing a genuine solution that will actually address the imbalance between pubco and publican that otherwise will continue to destroy businesses and close pubs”.