Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 26 November 2020
The issue first came to my attention when I was in the UK Parliament in England. I must say that I was impressed by the work of the Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland, who has been mentioned. He pushed for such legislation and was instrumental in its introduction down south.
The question is whether we need a similar bill in Scotland. I think that it has been agreed that there is a problem here as well but that the scale is much smaller than it is in England. One school of thought is that England is bigger and better than us, so we should copy anything that it does. I think that, to some extent, that is what happened with the legislation on lobbying, which was not so much of a problem in Scotland but we did not want to be left out.
The Scottish Government carried out research that was published in 2016, which concluded, among other things, that no part of the pub sector in Scotland appeared to be unfairly disadvantaged over others. So, all through the process and for a number years, there seems to have been a lot of uncertainty.
I was not a member of the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee when it took evidence and did most of its work on the bill, but I came in as it was working on its report, and it became evident to me that the claims that were being made by both sides were wildly conflicting and that the committee had struggled to find out what was really happening.
On one hand, the pubco model seems to work in some instances. A couple of pubs in my constituency were previously really scruffy. Significant investment was then made in them by Heineken’s Star Pubs and Bars, with the active participation of the tenants, and both pubs have improved tremendously. I do not know whether that would have happened under a different model.
However, the committee heard from tenants who felt that they were caught in a trap, with no way out. I also see pubs in my constituency with no Scottish beer at all despite the fact that we have the West and Drygate breweries in the east end of Glasgow. As a beer drinker, I see that as a problem. However, the question is exactly why it is happening, and we are not clear what the answer is.
One of the areas of contention among witnesses was what the income of tied pub tenants actually is, which the committee considered in paragraphs 28 to 38 of its report. Phrases such as “income”, “earned” and “take-home pay” can mean different things to different people. Alison Harris and I asked whether there were definitions of those phrases, but the committee did not receive any. Neither was it provided with audited accounts or similarly independently verified financial statements to substantiate the various claims.
Overall, it seems to me that the case for the bill is not proven—to adopt a phrase that Colin Beattie used. It is true that there is a problem to some extent, but committee members, including me, were not convinced that the problem is on a sufficiently large scale to warrant introducing legislation. In passing, I say that that is why we need the not proven verdict in the courts for cases in which there is not enough dependable evidence to say who is guilty and who is innocent.
Given the lack of conclusive proof, as far as I could see, the question is which way the Parliament should go on the matter. Often, we would not legislate on a matter in which the need was as uncertain as it is here. However, there is clearly a lot of support for the bill and I understand that it is likely to get enough votes tonight to enable it to proceed. I remain somewhat sceptical, though. Given my involvement in the production of the committee’s report, I will abstain from voting on the bill at decision time.
18:02