Meeting of the Parliament 01 March 2023 [Draft]
Pubs are at the heart of our communities: they bring people together, which helps to tackle loneliness and social isolation. Since Covid, however, they have faced unprecedented pressures.
The latest figures reveal that Scotland has 4,569 pubs, which support 61,900 jobs. The sector generates £1.8 billion for the Scottish economy every year, but pubs, the jobs and the economic and social contribution that they deliver are all at risk. In particular, they are at risk from record energy costs. Nearly half of all pubs are facing energy rises of more than 250 per cent, and one in three are facing rises of more than 500 per cent. They are at risk from sky-high rates, from the increased costs of drinks, food and broadcast subscriptions, and from increased supplier costs. They are at risk from a wilfully negligent Scottish National Party Government, the preposterously complex deposit return scheme and the absurd proposed restrictions on advertising, alcohol sponsorship and merchandising.
The Government now appears to have an anti-alcohol agenda. Rather than easing the pressure on pubs, the Government is piling the pressure on them like never before—the industry is at breaking point. The Scottish Licensed Trade Association says that 50 per cent of outlets were down in trade over the festive period compared with the last normal Christmas and new year season. In the first quarter of this year, six out of 10 outlets have been closing early or for full days.
Wherever I have lived or worked, I have always had a good local, as much for the social contact—if not more so—as for a good pint: the Tyneside Tavern, the Plough Tavern and the Mercat in Haddington, the Alleyn’s Head in Dulwich and the Marquis of Granby in Westminster. When I was living in south-east Asia, I would go to the Derby in Hong Kong, the Churchill Bar in Bangkok or the Penny Black in Singapore. Closer to home, just this weekend for the rugby, I went into the Goblin Ha’ and the Tweeddale Arms in Gifford. Those are all great pubs—places where I have made good friends and enjoyed beer and banter.
The “Friends on Tap” report that was produced for the Campaign for Real Ale—CAMRA—by the University of Oxford found that people who have a local have more friends and feel more connected to the local community than those who do not.
This week, I had the pleasure of visiting Dominic McNeill, who stepped in last year to save the Tower Inn in Tranent from permanent closure and change of use to housing. For years, Dominic had visited the pub with friends on a Wednesday night for a few pints and a few games of pool. Since taking over the pub, Dominic has not paid himself a wage and he is still swimming against the tide of rising costs and red tape. However, he is seeking to transform the pub into a family-friendly hospitality venue with a cafe.
Dominic and his team want to put the Tower Inn back into the heart of the community of Tranent. He talked fondly of his customers: the man who brings in his wife who suffers from dementia for some company and a cup of tea and to watch an episode of “Pointless”, and the elderly customer who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who, one day, did not show up for his pint as he normally would. When the staff realised that he had not come in, they went down and found him at his home, suffering an attack. The pub’s staff called an ambulance and got him the treatment that he needed.
Across Scotland, our pubs are so much more than places where people go for a drink or a bar meal. They are more than the bricks and mortar, the taps and the table, or the dedicated people who work within them. They are part of and at the heart of the communities that they serve.
Sadly, the future looks bleak for many of our licensed premises. There are urgent interventions that the Scottish Government could take to save them. In England, pubs and hospitality venues currently benefit from 50 per cent rates relief, which will rise to 75 per cent in the forthcoming year. Despite receiving funding through the Barnett formula to deliver the equivalent in Scotland, the SNP is not matching that. The Scottish Beer and Pub Association has calculated that that will cost Scottish pubs £34 million this year alone. The average rates bill for pubs in Scotland has increased from £13,206 to £13,627. That is a double whammy for Scotland’s struggling pubs. For pubs in England, rateable values fell by 17 per cent on average, after significant Covid recovery discounts were built in for the whole revaluation period. We risk losing more and more pubs across Scotland. To help them to survive, the Scottish Government must urgently consider a package of post-Covid reliefs.
I recognise that the Scottish Government must act on the harm caused by alcohol, but we must also recognise that well-run pubs, which monitor people’s consumption, are part of the solution, not part of the problem. People drink less when they are in pubs than they do when drinking at home. The Covid lockdowns showed us that. All too often, however, the SNP Government funds experts and launches consultations that tell ministers what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. Ministers do that instead of listening to an industry that already complies with strict licensing and trading laws, that adopts global best practice and that invests heavily in effective self-regulation. Sadly, the Government appears to ignore the effective efforts by organisations such as the Portman Group.
The minister should understand that we tackle the problem of drinking by targeting problem drinkers, not by squeezing the last drop out of a sector that is already struggling. We reduce the harms caused by alcohol by addressing the root societal, emotional and physical causes of abuse, not by marginalising or penalising those who enjoy social alcohol consumption. We do that by directing funding towards local alcohol services and by providing front-line support for those most in need. We do not solve the problem by removing the Tennent’s logo from pint glasses, by outlawing grass-roots community sports sponsorship or by boarding up the windows of the Johnnie Walker experience in Edinburgh.
The Government should pause—or, at the very least, massively scale back—its consultation on alcohol advertising. There is also huge concern, quite rightly, about the impact of the deposit return scheme on Scotland’s pubs.