Economy and Fair Work Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Official Report 564KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Tied Pubs (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [Draft]

Our next item of business is evidence taking on a draft Scottish statutory instrument. I welcome Tom Arthur, the Minister for Employment and Investment, who is joining us online. He is joined by Aileen Bearhop, the Scottish Government’s head of industry growth; Deborah Cook, the Government’s food and drink policy manager; and Mairead McCrossan, a solicitor with the Scottish Government. I invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the committee. I offer my congratulations to new members of the committee, and to Michelle Thomson on her appointment as deputy convener. I am very grateful for the committee’s consideration of the draft SSI this morning.

As I indicated to the committee on 5 June, the draft regulations extend the coming-into-force date to 31 March 2025 for both the Scottish pubs code and the Tied Pubs (Fees and Financial Penalties) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. That will create much-needed space and time to carry out further discussions on the code with the sector. If I can bring forward the coming-into-force date, I will do so. In any event, I plan to bring forward a further amending SSI to make changes to the code following consultation.

The draft regulations before you correct drafting errors that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee identified in the Scottish pubs code and fees and financial penalties instruments. They meet the Government’s commitment to the DPLR Committee to make an amending instrument to make the necessary changes. The regulations clarify that the rent assessment procedure ends two weeks after the offer of a market-rent-only lease. The regulations also clarify that the maximum financial penalty for not complying with the code is capped at 1 per cent of total group turnover where that is applicable.

I thank the committee for its consideration of the instrument.

Thank you, minister.

Could you provide a bit more detail on the planned consultation over the summer? At the start of June, we had a discussion with you about how difficult it was to resolve some of the outstanding issues. What are the plans to get agreement over the summer on how we move forward?

In the first instance, I will be meeting stakeholders in the coming weeks to discuss their specific concerns in more detail. Those meetings will help to inform what we will do regarding consultation.

The intention is for the consultation to be launched in mid-August and run for eight weeks. I will write to the committee relatively soon to update members with more detail about what we expect the consultation to include. I want it to be informed by my more detailed engagement with stakeholders in the coming weeks.

The Scottish pubs code adjudicator, Sarah Havlin, has recently been appointed for a three-year term. Will the delay to the regulations have any impact on the operation of her office?

No. The position had already been filled. It was originally intended that the regulations would come into force in early October, so her appointment preceded the commencement of the regulations anyway.

As I said, my intention is to bring forward the coming-into-force date if possible, but that will be contingent on the engagement that we have over the summer and on that consultation, about which I will keep the committee updated. The adjudicator will be able to start developing her role now that she has been appointed.

There were seven public engagement exercises between summer 2021 and August 2023. How can the committee be confident that more consultation will resolve the issues when there has been extensive consultation already?

I appreciate that point. I refer members back to a point that I made at the previous committee meeting: it would have been the Government’s desire and intention to have had further consultation and engagement but, because of the circumstances in which we found ourselves, with which the committee is familiar, that was not possible. At the previous meeting, we brought forward the regulations and set out the rationale for the approach that we are taking.

I am not going into this with an expectation that we will be able to find a pub code that will satisfy absolutely everyone, because I recognise that there are strong views about the code. However, I will seek to build as much consensus as possible.

As I said at the previous meeting, we are in a situation where the pubs code does not satisfy either pub-owning companies or tied publicans. I hope that, through engagement with representatives and stakeholders and through the consultation that we intend to launch in August, we can build a greater degree of consensus so that there can be confidence when the code comes into force. As I said previously, there is a requirement in the legislation to have a review in the future, which will provide a further opportunity for consideration, once there has been an opportunity for the code to operate.

As no other members have questions, we move to formal consideration of the motion to approve the draft regulations. I invite the minister to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Economy and Fair Work Committee recommends that the Tied Pubs (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 be approved.—[Tom Arthur.]

Motion agreed to.

The committee will prepare a short report to Parliament. I invite members to agree to delegate responsibility for that report to me. Do they agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

That concludes our business. I thank the minister and his officials for attending.

Meeting closed at 09:09.