Labour’s Margaret Pinder Slams MP For Failing To Stand Up For Local Pubs

Labour’s Margaret Pinder Slams MP For Failing To Stand Up For Local Pubs

This week Graham Stuart, MP voted against a new cross-party clause to the Small Business Bill which offered new protections for local publicans against the predatory practices of large pub owning companies (known as pubcos) and opposing plans to give local pubs and landlords a fairer deal.

Following a report into the industry by the cross-party BIS Select Committee in 2010, Labour have campaigned alongside a broad coalition of groups in the industry – including the Federation of Small Businesses, the Forum of Private Business, CAMRA, FairPint and the GMB and UNITE trade unions – to call for greater protection for local pubs and put a stop to unfair treatment and restrictive practices by pubcos.

The government’s provisions to regulate pubcos in the Small Business Bill, debated in Parliament this week, but these fell some way short of Labour’s plans and campaigners’ demands. Labour therefore supported a cross-party clause to strengthen the Bill.

However, despite several of his Tory/Lib Dem colleagues defying their whip to vote for this new clause, local voted against it.

Margaret Pinder, Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, said:

“We have seen a number of cases of local pubs under threat across the constituency and I am pleased to have been involved in efforts to save them. Graham Stuart had the opportunity to vote for new measures which would help support local landlords, but instead he chose to stand up for the large pub companies and to allow them to continue to exploit their tenants.

“27 pubs close every week and 57% of landlords who are tied to a large pubco earn less than £10,000 a year. These are scandals which must be addressed, and so I was proud that Labour MPs voted to make this important change. If I am elected in May, people in and Holderness can be assured that I will always support local pubs with deeds as well as words.”



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