FREE PLEASE TAKE ONE !!! CAMRA East Anglian Newsletter of 2012 HERTFORDSHIRE’S Pints of View The bi-monthly publication for every discerning drinker April/May 2013 Circulation 8750 No. 258 Malted Barley M akes the Mild in May See pages 8 and 9 Also on Page 2: Page 14: New date and venue for the Hitchin 2013 Beer Festival PLUS: NEWS BEER PUBS BREWERIES1 EVENTS SPECIAL FEATURES THE BITTER END Beer Duty Escalator Scrapped 2013 Budget scraps the beer duty rise - and cuts 1p off a pint t started with a 109,000 signature e-petition - a fantastic effort considering that CAMRA has just CAMRA thanks its members for Iless than 150, 000 members. This forced a all their support debate in Parliament in November 2012 where n the day of the Budget announcement, every single speaker was in favour of removal of CAMRA thanks all its members who took this unfair and unproductive tax which specifically Opart in the campaign to end the Beer Duty and disastrously affected our national drink. It was Escalator: only Sajid Javid who opposed on behalf of the “This afternoon in the Budget the Chancellor said Treasury with the same old misguided rhetoric. those words we have all been waiting for: “We will CAMRA for the first time in its 40 years of now scrap the beer duty escalator altogether”. He campaigning took their case to parliament with a is even going one step further and cutting beer th mass lobby on 12 December last where over duty by 1p a pint — which will mean that pubs 1,000 members won’t need to succeeded in meeting increase their prices over 300 MPs to this year. make our case. The Chancellor was Following this event very clear in his we continued to speech that he is canvass MPs on the scrapping the run up to the budget Escalator because of th on 20 March. Some of the responses were quite the incredible campaign by people like you over negative - Peter Lilley Harpenden & Hitchin being the past year — so on behalf of CAMRA, thank you a good example - and it was in doubt up until the for helping us get here! announcement late morning on budget day that Our campaign to Scrap The Beer Duty Escalator anything was going to change. started just after the 2012 Budget. You, our Osborne Delivers members have been fantastic in the way you have The Chancellor not only announced that the Beer supported our E-Petition which secured almost Duty Escalator was to be scrapped but made the 109,000 signatures and in turn forced a unprecedented move of reducing the duty on beer Parliamentary Debate. The next step in the by one penny per pint from the 1 st April. This is the campaign came with the Mass Lobby Day on first time in recent times that excise duty has been 12:12:12 and you continued this campaigning reduced. Whether customers will see this effort by meeting with your MPs to demand the reduction is unlikely but no brewer or publican Escalator be scrapped right up to today's Budget. will have an excuse for an increase. Over 8,000 of you have written to your MP this The licensed trade and drinkers have suffered year calling for a fair deal for beer and pubs. dreadfully during the period that the escalator has Your determination and dedication to the been running. As we all know pubs are now Campaign has shone through in many ways, and I shutting at a rate of eight per week with the knock am so proud of what we have achieved — the first on effect of job losses. I am ecstatic that for the first cut in beer duty since the 1970s. time in a long time the government have listened Let’s not lose sight of the fact that there will be to drinkers and addressed their problems. other taxation threats to pubs, clubs and beer, but Unfortunately it is still very expensive to drink in we will rise to those challenges and fight them to pubs and we have now got to focus on restrictive the best of our ability. practices by pubcos and brewers who are Please accept this as a personal thank you for the exploiting licensees with excessive rents and beer help and continued support you have given to this prices, which of course have to be passed onto Campaign; we couldn’t have done it without you!” customers. Best wishes. Jackie Parker Steve Bury CAMRA Director, Beer Tax Campaig 2 THE BITTER END MP Welcomes Government Response to Pub Concerns orth East Herts pubs. I was recently lobbied at Westminster by MP, Oliver local pub supporters from Letchworth and the Heald (right), surrounding area. Pubs are particularly important N in villages where they form the focus of has welcomed moves from the Government to community life. We need to make sure publicans support local publicans are treated fairly. by setting up an “It is clear that the self-regulation of the pub independent adjudicator industry has failed and it is right that the to address unfair Government is doing what they can to protect practices in the pub industry. This was a key publicans from abusive rents and prices.” demand of local pub supporters from Letchworth The problem with the new regulations is nobody and surrounding area who lobbied Oliver at yet knows exactly what they are going to be and Westminster recently. whether decisions will rigorously enforced. At The Adjudicator will enforce a new statutory code present publicans have to put down a deposit to to protect publicans from abuses by pub have cases heard which they lose if they do not companies on a number of issues including rents win. If the result of the adjudication is not to their and the price of beer. The Code will ensure that ‘a satisfaction there is no appeal process. It also tied licensee should not be worse off than a free- appears that for some obscure reason MPs seem to of-tie licensee’ by preventing the abuse of the beer think this will right all the pub companies’ wrongs tie — which means that publicans have to sell and make all pubs viable again. In other words we particular types of beer. The Government will be do not need to get rid of the “Beer Duty Escalator”. consulting on these proposals shortly. Think again it is both restrictive practices and the Commenting Oliver Heald said: “I know that many escalator that are killing pubs and ruining licensees constituents are worried about the future of local by forcing up prices and keeping customers away. 3 Brewery and Pub Industry News bring the pub up to date without upsetting the McMullen’s to Sell Five Herts traditional and simple internal charm. In Pubs Whitwell, the Maiden’s Head must surely attract ertfordshire’s largest brewer McMullen’s some buyers — yes, there are other pubs in the have reluctantly made a decision to sell village but it wasn’t that many years ago that the five pubs from its tied estate, including the pub was winning company awards for its cellar H and beer quality. Farriers Arms in St. Albans — host to the very first Hertfordshire CAMRA meeting on 20 November 1972, now commemorated on a blue plaque affixed to the frontage of the pub. Other pubs are in Haultwick, Bishop’s Stortford, Ickleford and Whitwell. In the company press release, which includes criticism of the Government’s continuing pressure on breweries and pubs, Managing Director Peter Furness-Smith says “We have stood Above (left to right): Farriers Arms, St Albans and by these pubs, in some cases for over 100 years, Maiden’s Head, Whitwell but feel it is now time for others to craft an opportunity from them. The challenge will be, as with all pubs, to try and develop a sustainable business providing employment and a valuable service to the community while at the same time being burdened with oppressive and increasing levels of taxation and business rates”. The company says that it has responded to the difficult Above (left to right: Tanners Arms, Bishop’s market conditions by reducing average rents by Stordford and the Green Man, Ickleford 20% since 2008 to assist tenants. It challenges the government to do the same in relation to business All five pubs have differing styles and offer unique rates — they have increased by 7% over the same opportunities, so let’s hope that there are some period. He says that some 20% of McMullen entrepreneurial people out there that will take up tenants now pay more in business rates than they this opportunity. It is the CAMRA branches’ view do in rent for the trading property, accommodation that all of these pubs could be saved if the right and support services and adds: “We hope that people took them over as free houses. potential purchasers can see past this government’s highly ‘anti-pub’ policies and maintain these five Want to Advertise in Pints of View? public houses as a going concern”. Whilst CAMRA welcomes Mac’s decision to sell Pints of View is distributed to over 300 pubs rather than just close, it fears for the future of some throughout Hertfordshire, and additionally to all public libraries and museums. of the pubs, particularly the Rest and Welcome , a small rural pub in the Page Size and Cost (excl. VAT) remote hamlet of Quarter Page: 74mm x 105mm max size = £55.00 Haultwick in east Half Page: 148mm x 105mm max size = £100.00 Hertfordshire (pub Please contact us for other advert size rates .