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Miliband announces plan to save UK pubs
Labour leadership candidate David Miliband has criticised the UK coalition government for failing to appoint a minister for pubs.
Drawing attention to the 40 pubs closing each week Miliband used his campaign blog to argue: “For too long we have tolerated this decline as the result of inevitable market forces. But we can and should stand up for the local pub – and the community links and civic life they sustain.
"Local pubs are great British institutions – and as Labour leader I would stand up for them.”
In February, before the Labour government’s general election defeat, it appointed John Healey to the new role of minister for pubs. Healey went on to announce a 12 point action plan and £4 million in funding to offer business support and help communities to buy into struggling local pubs.
As part of his manifesto, Miliband put forward a three point plan to support the pub industry and help slow the current closure rate.
This would see landlords of leased pubs being given the chance to opt out of their beer tie, enabling them to buy from any brewery, with the aim of offering consumers more competitively priced beer, as well as helping pubs support their local brewery.
Secondly, Miliband proposed to strengthen planning laws, meaning that pub firms wishing to change the usage of a pub property, or demolish it, would first have to open the process to a public consultation.
Miliband also pledged that, if Labour regained power under his leadership, he would reinstate a dedicated minister for pubs to champion their interests and facilitate a level of coordinated action which the former foreign secretary claimed is missing from the present government’s approach.
Since taking charge in May, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has shared out responsibility for the pub sector between three departments: local government, business and culture, media & sport.
However, last month prime minister David Cameron pledged a similar course of action to Healey’s original proposals as he outlined a support plan for pubs within his Big Society programme.
Gabriel Savage, 03.08.2010