Lincoln Jopp
Main Page: Lincoln Jopp (Conservative - Spelthorne) Heritage Public Houses Bill
Lincoln Jopp Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
On my way home last night, I popped in at the Three Horseshoes in Shepperton—because it is on the way. This morning, when I was driving into work with my wife, she said, “What are you doing in Parliament today?” I said, “I am supporting the British pub industry.” She said, deadpan, “Trust me, you’re doing your bit already.”
The debate today has been quite long, and I would like to draw attention to the comments by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). I would be very happy to take an intervention from him, because the official figures are in and, having checked Hansard, it seems that he mentioned Spelthorne in his speech more frequently than he mentioned his own constituency. If he wants to stand up and intervene on me so he can say the name of his constituency a few more times to even up the scores, I will of course take that intervention.
Adam Jogee
It is a case of a first time for everything: I do not think I can be accused of not making the case for Newcastle-under-Lyme as often as I can, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Just to remind Mr Jopp: there are many more colleagues in the Chamber than Mr Adam Jogee.
Lincoln Jopp
Madam Deputy Speaker, you may or may not be aware that there is a rumour at large in Parliament and alive in the Tea Room that hon. Members only have to mention the name of a pub in their constituency, then send to that pub the hard copy of Hansard where the name is mentioned, and the next time they go in there, they get a free pint! That is, of course, completely untrue—a point I have had to make to the landlords of the Happy Landing in Stanwell, the King’s Fairway in Ashford, the White Horse in Sunbury and the Wheatsheaf & Pigeon on the Staines-Laleham road, a pub where I will be going tomorrow to lodge my “Save Kempton Park” banner for a week as it tours my Spelthorne constituency.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) on bringing this debate. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) is not in her place anymore, but there was a genuine exchange of ideas there on whether the protections envisaged in this private Member’s Bill are required. The story of the Crooked House is a salutary one. I have in my constituency a number of very historic pubs, including the Admiral Hawke, an 18th century pub named after the former First Sea Lord and Member of Parliament for Portsmouth, and the Bells in Staines. Imagine if they were to burn down under suspicious circumstances—they are not listed and nor are they listed as assets of community value. They would be further protected under this private Member’s Bill, so I think it has merit.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch said that her sort of “so what?” was: “Well, we should all therefore be encouraging our communities to get together if they do value their pubs and to have them registered as assets of community value.”
That clearly is not happening as much as the legislation envisaged, hence this private Member’s Bill.
I want to make one observation: normally, when we call pubs “Assets of Community Value”, we do so to try to protect them when they are in trouble. Let us take away the capital letters and just say that those pubs are assets of community value, encouraging all our people to invest in them by going to them. Tragically, the British Beer and Pub Association reports that this year we are on track to lose a pub a day in Britain. Some 300 have closed in the first nine months of this year. We have not had much of a sense of the challenges that they face. I will not go too political on this, but the landlords I speak to are very aware of the additional challenges: business rates, the minimum wage and employers’ national insurance. The onus is on all of us. It is tragic that, when a pub closes, everyone is up in arms, but when I ask people how often they had been there, they might say, “Oh, I went there last year.”
Pubs really need our help. If the Bill were to come to a vote, I would support it but I am delighted that we have had an opportunity raise some of the issues of the British pub industry, its challenges and the protections that it needs.