Landlords go to parliament for a "fair pint"

At a time when a revolt is seething over the MP expenses scandal, it seems appropriate that another system which seems to be designed to benefit distant men and women in suits, rather than local communities, is under the spotlight: the tied pub sector.

The landlord or landlady of a tied pub, of which there are many in North Devon, is in some ways similar to the franchisee of an American fast food chain; they work for a corporation who controls their everyday business from afar, purely for profit.

Yes, a tied landlord might have more freedom than a McDonald's manager to change some aspects of their business, such as decor for example, but, crucially, they cannot buy stock direct from wholesalers. And there is the rub: if you are in charge of a tied house, you are forced to buy your beer via the pubco you work for, who charge you a higher rate, and that will be on top of the "rent" which always seems to be rising well above inflation. And that's before we get on to the "pub" firms who, entirely legally, apply to have pubs demolished or turned in to flats.

Well, the system might seem ludicrous and unfair, but many businesses are like that and remain highly profitable and popular. But the tied sector does not seem to be working. Pubs are closing at record rates. A national institution seems in peril. Landlords are quitting because they can't make a decent living and local people are losing something which should be their birthright, not an optional extra. Not an extra because proper local pubs are much more than businesses; they are community centres, historical gems, nourishment for the soul and icons of English history: they are too precious and imperfect and invaluable (in all senses of that word) to be left to certain decisions by certain philistine corporations.

Publicans, usually a conservative tribe by nature, are so fed up they are planning to take their battle to parliament this week, to meet MPs and lobby for an end to the tie system. Brian Jacobs, a founder member of the Fair Pint Campaign, has said: "For too long the voice of tenants hasn’t been heard at Westminster." Well it will be now, and our luxury-loving MPs should find themselves in a listening frame of mind.

Strange times, but this problem is not a new one. By the mid-1970s, a contemporary book reveals, when the current tied house system was cemented, the number of brewers in the UK had shrank from thousands in the Victorian era to a mere dozens, following the natural business tendency to concentrate, rather than proliferate, variety. This is when the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) (I am not a member) started to fight back. It is only in the past five or ten years that the microbrewery boom has begun to significantly redress the imbalance which had been in favour of the giant brewers and pubcos; I think it is fair to say we are living in the best time for beer for many, many decades, while, paradoxically, many of our pubs are in crisis, for a variety of reasons, not just the pubcos.

Landlords of tied houses in North Devon have told me that they are being squeezed by the pubcos until the bottle corks squeak. Of course, the pubco suits wheeled on to national radio programmes disagree with the complaints and claim they provide the opportunity for landlords to make a decent living, and without taking on 100% of the risk of any business. I'm sure some pub managers do well out of the deal. There is disagreement about how badly tied landlords are paid; they claim it can be £12,000 a year for a 100-hour week, while the pubcos say it is usually more than double that amount, excluding free accommodation at the pub.

Other people connected with the pub trade have told me a fair-enough "shake out" is going on in the industry and some of the landlords who fail will deserve to fail, perhaps a small minority were incompetent, or even lazy, or simply providing a service nobody wanted to use, no matter how much they strained their sinews to succeed. I think it is fair to say we do not have an overall shortage of pubs in England; we do, however, in my ever-growing experience have a shortage of top drawer pubs. 

In the end I find it hard to argue with the landlords who say they should have the choice not to be tied to a pubco's every demand and whim. Why should they? And, after all, when it comes to fairness, and who owes who what, what have the pubcos ever done for us? Yes, I agree with the pubcos when they say they are not the entire cause of the woes of the English pub, but they are hardly the fountains of joy either. There are too many medicore or downright godawful pubs in all corners of the country, and the causes of their unpleasantness might well be many, but I can't remember the last time I went in to a free house that deserved to close.