Pub companies blasted by MPs

MPs today accused pub company bosses of having their tenants in a 'strait jacket' with high beer and rent charges.

Enterprise Inns, Punch Taverns and Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries were appearing in front of the powerful Trade and Industry Select Committee, which was clearly angered by Enterprise chief executive Ted Tuppen's claim that only a tiny minority of Britain's tenants had concerns.

MPs are investigating whether 'pubcos', which act as landlords and beer wholesalers, wield too much power and bleed excessive profits from their tenants.

'You have got your tenants over a barrel,' said Tory Nigel Evans. 'We have had hundreds of letters from people who are really dissatisfied - more than any select committee I have ever been on.'

He claimed the legislation known as the Beer Orders, brought in to cut the monopoly of brewers who owned the majority of Britain's pubs, had failed to free tenants. 'We have replaced one complex monopoly for another,' he said.

Tuppen said a few hundred complaints should not be taken as representative of Britain's 33,000 tenanted pubs. 'You are in danger of making conclusions from a very unrepresentative sample.'