Mr. Greg Mulholland:

Those are some very good questions. The Deputy's last point is very interesting. One could imagine a fantasy pub sector with the Irish pub ownership structure, which is nearly all freehold, and the British beer sector, which is booming and enjoying huge competition. There are small breweries knocking on pub doors and new breweries opening every month, yet many of them cannot get into the large pub companies because they cannot afford to sell at the very low prices those pubs insist on. Often, breweries cannot afford to sell even in their local village, if none of the pubs there is freehold. It is a stark contrast.

I am interested to hear about the Deputy's experience of craft brewing; perhaps he was 15 years too early as it is all the rage now. It was Gordon Brown who brought in the progressive beer duty - the small brewers rate relief - which started a resurgence at the bottom end of the British brewing industry. The growth has been quite remarkable. In September 2014, for which I have the figures here, there were 1,285 breweries in the UK, the vast majority of which were in Great Britain with more in England than anywhere else. To plug my own area, west Yorkshire has the single largest concentration of breweries of any county in the country.

The range of beer being brewed now is extraordinary. The majority of it is still cask ale, although there is a new trend for craft keg beer, which is more akin to the craft beer brewed over here or to American-style beer. British brewing has been going through the most extraordinary resurgence in quality and quantity.

That type of beer nearly died out in the 1970s through the dominance of the large brewing companies at the time. They decided to turn away from the traditional cask conditioned product for cheaper keg versions of the British bitters. Lager also became a popular drink, as it did here. At the same time we have seen the decline of the pubs.

It is not entirely popular, it must be said, because some of the medium sized brewers do not believe it is fair that they do not get any relief. There are some calls to make it a sliding scale, so everybody gets relief on the first quantity of beer that they brew and one does not get this cliff edge, which can prove a disincentive for some brewers to expand from being a micro brewer to being a medium sized brewer. Clearly, one does not wish to have anything in taxation that produces a disincentive to grow but it is important to have that so we will continue to have the quality and choice of beer. Incidentally, it is now generally produced far closer to the pubs that serve it, which is more environmentally friendly. Also, there is a trend among people both here and in the UK to want local produce of all types, and that is to be welcomed.

That is the significant thing that has been done. There has not really been a promotion of craft beer. Governments would say that they support brewing and the current and last governments would say that the biggest way they did that and showed confidence in British beer was through cuts in beer duty. It was very significant in terms of the message it conveyed and the confidence it produced in the sector.

There is far less linkage with the lucrative scotch whisky industry and the on-trade, although it is clearly a big seller in the on-trade. Most of the focus from the UK Government tends to be on exports rather than promoting it in the on-trade and, indeed, there are always efforts in supporting the Scottish whisky industry in that regard.

With regard to business rates, the small business rate relief being extended has certainly helped many pubs. The Save the Pub Group would like to see, potentially through the assets of community value initiative, a specific rate relief given to community pubs where the community pub can show that it has that role in the community, as genuine community pubs do in that it supports charitable work, community organisations and sports teams. It is necessary to find a way of doing that but we would like to see something specific in the rates system in the UK.

A campaign was launched recently to try to address the high business rates that many pubs are charged, and the Save the Pub Group has pledged to support it. Clearly, business rates is a big issue for many UK publicans. There is something of an irony here because it is being led by the British Beer and Pub Association, which is the representative body of the big players, the large pub companies and large breweries. The irony is that it was the British Beer and Pub Association which put the current rates regime in place by proposing it in the first place. At the time, it was a way of enabling the pub-owning companies to take a greater share of the income from the pub. Now, it works very significantly against licensees. That is one of the ironies from that debacle, but we are keen and we will work with that association and others to try to get a fairer system of rates which, as the member said, more directly reflects the income and the profit in the pub. The current very complex system, on which I can share more information with the committee, does not do that.