Mulholland hits out at Enterprise boss Tuppen over CBE

In a wider debate about the honours system to the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament, Mulholland said: “If someone has been given something for services to an industry and they then are deemed to have damaged that industry, they should lose it.”

He used Tuppen’s CBE, which he received in 2007 for services to the hospitality industry, as an example.
Mulholland accused Tuppen of paying himself half a million pound bonuses and increasing his pay by 50%, even though Enterprise has been over £3bn in debt.

Mulholland said: “There are many people – including me – who study the pub industry very closely who believe he has done more damage singularly than any other individual in this country to the British pub industry. Should there not be a third criteria to say that where people are deemed to have damaged the very sector they are supposed to have helped, they should forfeit their honours?”

He added: “Very clearly and finally, I absolutely agree giving people like Ted Tuppen an honour brings the honours system into disrepute; he has rewarded himself enormously whilst his companies are failing, his tenants’ businesses are collapsing, families’ lives are being ruined and pubs are closing up and down the country.

“Should there be tighter criteria that say, ‘we will reward you for certain things’ – perhaps not most things, but for certain things – ‘and if you then do things that are an antithesis to that, you will have that honour taken away’, and that then should become an understanding of the system?”
Enterprise Inns did not comment.