Mulholland feted as campaigner of the year

Greg Mulholland, Member of Parliament for Leeds North  West and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group,has been named the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Parliamentary Campaigner of the Year.
The award was presented to Mr Mulholland in recognition of work he has undertaken in campaigning for Britain’s community pubs and for pub company reform. This included his freedom of information request that turned the course of the whole issue at the pivotal Save the Pub Group meeting on 5 December last year which laid bare the failure of self regulation. The Government then announced in January that due to the failure of self-regulation it would introduce a statutory code of practice and the consultation period, which has now started.

 Greg Mulholland MP commented: “I am very proud to receive this award from CAMRA and it has been a pleasure working with them to campaign to support and protect our unique institution, the community pub. I have been pleased over the last 18 months to have led the campaign for pubco reform. We have gone from a situation where the Government had rejected legislation, to the announcement that we would have a statutory code of practice for the pubcos that would at last enshrine that a tied licensee will not be worse off than a free of tie licensee.

“CAMRA are real champions for all pub goers and I am delighted that they have recognised my efforts and I look forward to continuing to work with them. Already they have shown through the remarkable success on beer duty that they remain the most effective consumer campaign group in British history and now I will be working had with them to finally get much needed pubco reform and a fair deal for local pubs".

Jonathan Mail, Head of Public Affairs at CAMRA, commented: “Greg Mulholland MP has won this award due to his tenacious and determined campaigning to put an end to the injustices faced by thousands of pub landlords tied to the large pub companies. Putting an end to these injustices will avoid many unnecessary pub closures meaning that Greg's work will benefit all those who back the Great British Pub.

“Greg ensured that the pub companies repeated failures to deliver effective self-regulation were brought direct to the attention of Parliamentarians and Ministers. Greg’s tireless work within Parliament on this issue culminated in Vince Cable announcing Government action in January and the publication of detailed proposals last Monday."