Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent steps he has taken to prevent pub closures.

Anna Soubry

This Government is committed to supporting a fair and flourishing pubs sector. We have scrapped the beer duty escalator, and at Budget 2015 we cut beer duty for the third year in a row. Through the Community Right to Bid, we are giving communities in England a fairer chance to bid to buy and run their pub by listing it as an Asset of Community Value. We are introducing a statutory Pubs Code and an independent Adjudicator to govern the relationship between large pub-owning companies and the thousands of tenants that run tied pubs across England and Wales. These measures will help to ensure the pubs industry continues to thrive, to the benefit of all those who work hard to make the pub the mainstay of our communities.