CAMRA echoes calls for urgent reform from the Government to help local tied tenants.

A CAMRA survey of over 400 tied pub tenants in England and Wales has revealed significant failures in the Pubs Code, which governs the relationship between tenants and large pub-owning companies.

CAMRA campaigned for nearly a decade for a Pubs Code to be put in place, but the survey has revealed it is currently failing tenants, sparking a call on the Government to act to protect tied licensees.

Responding to the survey, 75% of tenants said that they didn’t think they were being treated fairly and lawfully by their parent pub companies, whilst 73% felt that they were worse off than a free of tie tenant. Furthermore, one in five tenants who have legal rights under the Code was completely unaware of the Market Rent Only option - an important component of the legislation that allows them to buy beer on the open market at the point of their contract renewal.

Nik Antona, CAMRA National Chairman said: “We wanted to gain an accurate picture of the views of tied licensees in England and Wales. The Pubs Code Adjudicator currently relies on pub companies to audit licensees opinions, which we believe has skewed responses. It’s clear from our survey that there are significant failures with the current Pubs Code. With a new Prime Minister and Cabinet, the ongoing Review is the first chance for the new Government to show that they will be taking positive action to support tied pub tenants and consumer choice.”

The results of the CAMRA survey have been submitted to the Government to feed into the much anticipated review of the Pubs Code. Any interested parties can read the full submission on the CAMRA website.

If you support CAMRA's position on this, why not write to your MP drawing their attention to CAMRA's consultation submission?