BII: BEC misunderstood our role

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/forum.ma/SaveGenericPost/53419

Colin. Fair Pint doesn't have a boss. It's a coalition of tied licensees and pub trade experts - as it says on the website. And, in all honesty, we've had no dissent among the steering group at any stage since we started out well over a year ago.

The division Mr Luff referred to was not a division. He mentioned that when Fair Pint started out we called for the removal of the tie from all pubcos except those with fewer than 500 pubs. This 500 threshold would keep all family and small regional brewers in the UK from having the tie removed. As the Fair Pint campaign progressed it became absolutely clear that there would be no way to safeguard individual licensees from potential abuse of tied conditions under all circumstances, and that if the tie remained in any shape or form there would be opportunity for big companies to fragment their activities and use the tie trhough loopholes in legislation, so we moved, as a group as on, to amend Fair Pint's objective on the removal of the tie to include all brewers and pubcos no matter how small or large.

So, as far as Peter Luff was concerned, Fair Pint started off one way and then changed its mind. Perhaps he saw that as a sign of 'division' among the steering group where, in fact, it reflected an evolutionary development of our view of the tie as a group.