Not that many years ago we were given to believe that the big bad boys in the pub trade were breweries with large chains of ‘tied’ pubs. Then the government waded in with the Beer Orders which amongst other things decreed that brewers must reduce their tied chains to a maximum of 2000 outlets.

This was retrospective legislation, as the breweries had done nothing illegal and could sensibly argue that by building up large profitable chains they were protecting thousands of brewery jobs.

Now we have huge pub-owning companies, the so-called Pubcos, with chains of up to and beyond 10,000 pubs but with no manufacturing base. Is this not a much worse scenario than the old brewery chains ?

I would argue that pub-owning landlords should not be permitted to tie their self-employed tenants to any products or services whatsoever, but should simply collect rent. This should be embodied in European Law.

Sadly, this is not the case and thousands of Pubco tenants are not only fully tied on all their wet sales products but are even compelled to share the income from fruit machines. They have to order and pay for all their wet products through their landlord, who in turn keeps a big slice of the discount that is rightfully theirs.

To enforce their wretched ties on tenants, electronic beer monitoring equipment is now commonly seen in cellars, with information being fed back online to the Kremlin. This is to deter tenants from ‘buying out’ at free market prices under pain of termination of their lease. If their tenants could buy in cheaper, we would pay less for a pint in their pubs.

It would be inconceivable for the landlord of say a grocery, hairdressing or sex shop to be allowed to force their tenants to buy all of their purchases through him and at his uncompetitive prices. Why then are these pub-owning firms allowed to get away with it ?

Perhaps brewers should still be able to tie tenants to products that they manufacture, but on the clear understanding that they do not sell cheaper to the free trade. Some brewery tenants have had to compete with independent managed house chains that can retail the beer cheaper than their cost prices. The usual glib excuse is for their area manager to say that there is no dialogue between the tied and free trade sales divisions of the brewery.

I believe that the number of pubs that a Pubco can own should be capped. A good starting point would be 2000, as this figure was reached after careful consideration when the Beer Orders were inflicted on the brewery chains.

There needs to be a tabloid campaign to free pub tenants from all ties. Not enough people read the licensed trade papers for them to have any political sway. The Daily Mail has come in for a lot of stick recently because of its campaign against 24 hour drinking, with landlords being encouraged by a trade newspaper to boycott this tabloid from their pubs. Far better that the Mail be harnesssed to mount a national campaign to rein in the Pubcos and to allow their tenants unfettered purchasing powers.

It is time for the tie to be untied and the huge Pubcos broken-up, so the sooner we start writing to the national press the better.

Hugh Price
Tynemouth Lodge Hotel