May 2008:
Fair Pint is launched at the House of Commons and gains cross-party support for its campaign to highlight how large pub owning companies are using the tie to exploit pub tenants. Fair Pint asks for the Business and Enterprise Select Committee to open an inquiry into the relationship between pub companies and their lessees.
June 2008:
45 MPs from all the main parties support an Early Day Motion which expresses concern about the concentration of pub ownership by a few large property companies and expresses concern that recommendations made by the Trade & Industry Select Committee have been ignored by the industry.
Later in the month the Business and Enterprise Select Committee responds to the Fair Pint Campaign and announces an inquiry to review the tied pub sector.
August 2008:
Fair Pint gains high profile political backing when the Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Dr Vince Cable backs the campaign saying:
"The system of tied pubs goes completely against the idea of competitive markets. It is especially damaging at a time like this when pubs are under pressure because of a slowdown in the economy combined with rising costs. I support the Fair Pint Campaign which is pushing for legislation for leased pubs to be released from their tie."
November 2008:
Fair Pint members Bryan Jacobs, Simon Clarke and David Morgan give evidence to the Business and Enterprise Select Committee about the problems faced by tenants and how the abuse of the tie and the rent valuation system is leading to the failure of thousands of tied pub businesses.
March 2009:
Fair Pint welcomes supportive comments from the Chancellor Alistair Darling, Treasury Minister Angela Eagle and Licensing Minister Gerry Sutcliffe stating that that the tie is a reason for the problems faced by the pub sector and the tied tenancy business model needs to be reconsidered.
The respected Institute for Public Policy Research, publishes research on the threats to the future of community pubs. Their publication Pubs and Places: The social value of community Pubs makes if clear that over charging of tied lessees through the abuse of the tie and the manipulation of rental valuations is a major cause of pub closures.
May 2009:
The House of Common’s Business and Enterprise Select Committee, publishes a report on pub companies, which supports many of Fair Pint’s demands for freedom from the tie and a Competition Commission investigation into the market to protect the interests of lessees and consumers
Fair Pint hold a lobby day in the House of Commons, which is attended by hundreds of publicans and dozens of MPs. Fair Pint calls for parliamentarians to back the conclusions of the Business and Enterprise Select Committee’s report and to put pressure on ministers to refer pub companies to the Competition Commission.
July 2009:
Fair Pint holds a pubs summit in the House of Commons to debate the future of the industry and the need for a rebalancing of the relationship between tied lessees and pub companies if the pub sector in the UK is going to have a long-term future.
September 2009:
Members of Fair Pint travel to Brussels to meet officials in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition to press for changes to the EU Block Exemption Regulation on vertical restraints to remove the protection for the exemption from large pub companies which would mean that they would have to prove that their agreements do not restrict competition.
October 2009:
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors publish the conclusions of their pub industry forum. The forum was established in response to criticisms of RICS in the Business and Enterprise Select Committee report on pub companies. The conclusions of the forum upheld one of Fair Pint’s key demands, that pub rents should be set in such a way, which means that tied tenants and lessees are financially no worse of than if they were free of tie.
Fair Pint, along with: the FSB, CAMRA, the Association of Licensed Multiple Operators, the Guild of Master Victuallers, Justice for Licensees, Unite the Union, form the Independent Pub Confederation as a umbrella group pressing for government intervention ensure free competition in the pub sector.
November 2009:
Peter Luff, the Chairman of the Business Innovation and Skills Committee, announces a new evidence session to look at progress in the pub sector since the publication of the Business and Enterprise Select Committee’s report in May. The committee asks for oral evidence from the Independent Pub Confederation, the British Beer and Pub Association and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. |
