Greg Mulholland MP calls for Pubs Governing Body chair Bernard Brindley to resign

13-Nov-2013 - Last updated on 13-Nov-2013 at 15:23 GMT

Mulholland calls for chair Bernard Brindley to resign

Chair of Save the Pub Group Greg Mulholland has called on Pubs Governing Body (PGB) chair Bernard Brindley to resign claiming he is “not a fit and proper person to be in such a role”.

The call comes in response to Brindley’s comments last week in which he accused some licensees who have used the Pubs Independent Conciliation and Arbitration Service (PICA-Service) of trying to “discredit” the system.

Brindley aired his views after a group of licensees met with Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) minister Jo Swinson to hand over a dossier of their experiences. The dossier was critical of the PICA-Service claiming it was not independent, the panel members are not impartial and licensees are not given reasoned findings for its decisions.

Unprofessional

In a letter from Mulholland to Brindley and copied into Business Innovation and Skills secretary of state Vince Cable, minister Jo Swinson, BISC chairman Adrian Bailey, the Independent Pubs Confederation and the PICA-Service licensees, he said: “I must call upon you to resign from this post, for your unprofessional conduct.

"I have no confidence in your ability to fulfil this role and your continued presence in it further undermines the already exposed and inadequate self regulatory system and PGB.”

Mulholland also accused the self regulatory system of operating with “ a fundamental dishonesty and deliberate deception”.

He added: “It is sad Bernard that you have clearly been seduced by being given an important title and the equally sad reality is that your injudicious comments show that you are entirely unsuited to be chairing something that purports to be a governing body in the pub sector.”

Sinister

Mulholland admitted that Brindley has the right to defend PICA-Service but claimed it was unfair to personally criticise the licensees.

“As well as being wholly inappropriate and a clear abuse of your position, it is also deeply sinister,” he said.

“Your outburst is an embarrassing admission that you do not want the conduct of your tribunal to be open and transparent which it clearly needs to be."

A response from the PGB and Bernard Brindley will follow...

Download a copy of the letter below