Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 26 November 2020
Clearly, neither is mine—I was only joking, Mr Johnson.
Andy Wightman welcomed that I was not persuaded by the committee’s recommendations, which is—I suppose—a fair observation in the absolute sense. However, I say to the committee that there was much in its report with which I had considerable sympathy, such as the point about the lack of independent and impartial analysis, which we tried to undertake as a Government back in 2016. However, trying to get underneath the skin of many of the issues that have been raised has been difficult, and I therefore understand the challenges that the committee faced.
Speaking of that 2016 study, I turn to turn Maurice Golden’s remarks, in which he suggested that it was evidence against the bill. However, what it demonstrated was the issue that I just laid out—that it was difficult to get underneath the skin of the issue.
We struggled to engage with that piece of work at the time. We reached the conclusion not so much that there was not a case for legislation per se, but that we would not introduce that legislation ourselves, and we did not. Mr Bibby did, however, and it is incumbent on us to consider his bill.
Maurice Golden raised—entirely genuinely, I believe—the concerns that the pub companies expressed around investment. Those concerns are serious indeed, so I want to set out that I am committed to continuing to generally engage with pub companies about issues that affect their sector, including those of investment and of any code that we would seek to develop, should the bill become an act of Parliament.