Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 March 2021
I have lodged these amendments to allow the adjudicator to tackle an issue that has been of concern to the industry and to me for some time, which has taken on new significance following amendments made to the bill at stage 2. The bill was amended at stage 2 so that the Government now has a maximum of two years—extended from the one year originally in the bill—in which to make the code and appoint an adjudicator. I have said before that I understand the very fair and legitimate reasons why the Government would wish that to be the case, not least because of the impact of Brexit and the Covid pandemic.
I thank the minister for his constructive engagement with me on this issue and on the bill more generally. I am also grateful for the minister’s confirmation that the two-year timeframe is not a target and that the code and adjudicator may well be in place sooner than two years after the bill is passed.
However, there are already concerns among tenants and representative organisations that some pub-owning businesses may use the period between the bill passing and the code and adjudicator coming into effect to take steps to avoid the code by creating agreements by other means that could take them out of the scope of the code and adjudicator. Those could include short-term agreements, self-employed management agreements and other forms of bogus self-employment. If that was to happen, it could have a significant impact on tenants’ rights, pubs and consumers.
I therefore lodged amendment 3 to require the adjudicator to start an investigation in the first year of their appointment into any changes that were made to contractual terms in the period between the bill receiving royal assent and section 7 of the bill coming into force, which relates to the unenforceable contract terms, if those changes resulted in agreements not being covered by the code. The amendment requires the report, which would include an explanation of the adjudicator’s findings, to be published and laid before the Parliament, which would allow for committees to scrutinise the report and ministers to give it full consideration.
Amendment 10 is a consequential amendment that allows the adjudicator to require a person on pain of prosecution to provide information in relation to that avoidance investigation by adding the investigation to the list of reasons for such information gathering that is set out in paragraph 4 of schedule 2.
I respect the right of businesses to manage and structure their business as they see fit, if that is done fairly and with good intent. However, most of us would agree that deliberately seeking to undermine the code before it is enforced is not desirable. For various reasons, it would not be possible for the bill to directly provide for such avoidance attempts, but I ask members to consider the amendment in my name and give the adjudicator the power to investigate such behaviour.
I move amendment 3.