Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
300-311)
MR GILES
THORLEY, MR
GILES KENDALL,
MR TED
TUPPEN AND
MR SIMON
TOWNSEND
9 DECEMBER 2008
Q300 Mr Binley: No, you answer my
question first.
Mr Tuppen: Well, 32 and 12, those
are not material differences.
Q301 Mr Binley: Well, it is three
times as many.
Mr Tuppen: But the solution lies
in support, which we give unconditionally, for the BII proposal
to produce a £1,000 fixed-cost professional arbitration system.
Now, we support this entirely and we are working with them because,
I do agree with you, if you are to criticise the arbitration process,
we can afford to pay £20,000 if we really feel strongly about
it and the licensee cannot, and we have to change that process.
Q302 Mr Binley: I am going to stop
you, Mr Tuppen, because you are not answering my question. The
point I was making about the DN structure is that you avoid arbitration
at any cost at all.
Mr Tuppen: Well, absolutely.
Q303 Mr Binley: What I am saying
to you is that yours does not look very good from the complaints
we have had. Will you look into that and give us that undertaking?
Mr Tuppen: I will.
Q304 Mr Binley: Will you come back
to us and give us the results of your investigation because you
have got some work to do here?
Mr Tuppen: Will you give me the
list of people?
Q305 Mr Binley: I am not sure. I
leave that to the Chair.
Mr Tuppen: If you can give us
the names of people, then we can look at it.
Q306 Chairman: Some of it is confidential
and some is not.
Mr Tuppen: We are very happy to
do it on a case-by-case basis.
Q307 Mr Binley: There is an issue
there which, I am pleased to tell you, you need to deal with,
quite frankly, and that gives me some pleasure. Now, how much
do arbitration cases cost and who bears the cost you have answered.
What additional information is released at arbitration from you?
Are you holding stuff back so that, when it gets to arbitration,
you give nothing of that kind? Can I ask, how many publicans take
up the cooling period which is a part of the going-in process?
Mr Tuppen: The 90 days we have
now increased to 180 days with our new tenancy agreements.
Q308 Mr Binley: That is interesting,
that is good.
Mr Tuppen: That is again a commitment,
just recognising at the time of the last Committee that it was
suggested that 28 days was a bit short and we agreed with that
then and we moved straight to 90 days, so there was no question
about that. We now have a retail partnership tenancy where you
can give notice at any time within the first six months. Anyone
who has any uncertainty at all can, in the first instance, go
on to that short-term tenancy.
Q309 Mr Oaten: Do Punch do six months
or will you move to it now?
Mr Thorley: We do not, but we
will happily move to it. It is just worth noting that I was just
asking my colleague, Mr Kendall, how many had actually served
notice under their tenancy and his answer is—
Mr Kendall: None.
Q310 Mr Oaten: So you will move to
six months?
Mr Thorley: Yes, we will move
to six months, no problem at all, but, as we have said, none has
or very, very few actually ever get exercised which should suggest
that at least we do something right initially anyway.
Q311 Mr Binley: Can I finally ask,
what happens to a tenant who wants to surrender his lease and
what penalties do you include in the lease in that respect?
Mr Tuppen: That is an interesting
one. It would be very much on a case-by-case basis. We will take
a very different view of someone who pops the keys through the
letterbox and tries not to be found and we will pursue them to
see whether we can recover the costs incurred while we get the
pub reopened. If someone is in a good relationship with us and
they say, "Look, frankly, this isn't working", we will
work with them for them to move out of the pub to assign. Typically,
if that process works well, it will not cost them anything because
we will be working with them and helping to find someone to take
the pub on. If they do not take that view, then of course we are
in a much more difficult situation because we are going to end
up with a shut pub that could be shut for six weeks and we would
have the security costs, someone will pinch the tiles and, before
we know where we are, we have got costs, so our plea to tenants,
and we do not have to make this to tenants because the vast majority
of them know this already, is, "Work with us and we will
help you in difficult circumstances".
Mr Thorley: As always, there is
a sad difference between cannot pay and will not pay and there
is absolutely no point in our pursuing cannot pays and we do not.
Will not pay, that is a different matter and we do reserve the
right to pursue if we have evidence, but again it is very, very
much on a case-by-case basis and specific to the individual circumstances.
Chairman: Well, I am afraid there are
many other questions we would have liked to ask you at greater
length and I would have liked to go through all these individual
complaints by individual tenants one by one, but we cannot do
that. You have been very generous with your time and we have run
well over, appallingly over, but I am very grateful to all those,
including the shorthandwriter, who suffered this as well! Thank
you very much indeed.
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