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John Healey MP, the recently-appointed Pubs Minister, has announced a 12-point action plan aimed at helping Britain’s community pubs. As with all such announcements, especially one so close to the general election, it’s difficult to work out what will definitely happen but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. CAMRA is currently trying to get all the major parties to endorse the plan.
The main elements of the package are:
- £3.3 million to provide direct support to local communities wanting to buy their local pub
- £1 million to Pub is the Hub, which provides rural pubs with business advice, especially around diversification
- pressure on the industry to offer more freedom for tenants; they should have the choice of a beer tie or not and if they opt for a tie, they should still be able to sell a guest beer
- measures to make it easier for smaller pubs to put on live music
- summary demolition of pubs to be banned. Owners would instead have to notify the local authority who could require submission of a planning application
- removal of the right of pub owners to sell pubs with “covenants” attached which preclude them being used as pubs in the future.
If all the proposals come to fruition then they greatly help the struggling pub sector, where closures continue at the rate of 40 a week. CAMRA will certainly keep the pressure on after the election to ensure that whoever is in power commits themselves to implementing the plan or something very like it.
P.S. Of course, any government genuinely serious about wanting to help pubs wouldn’t,
the very next week, slap a 5% increase on beer duty in its Budget.
This means that beer duty has gone up by an eye-watering 25% in just two years.
A 10% hike on cider duty just makes things worse.