A package of self-regulation was proposed by the pubcos this was to include an Independent Framework Code (IFC)[9] and for all pub companies offering a tied rent to have a company code, a rent review scheme (PIRRS)[10] and a dispute resolution service (PICAS).
This was further highlighted during the 2011 BIS select committee: "The BBPA has shown itself to be impotent in enforcing its own timetable for reform and the supposed threat of removing the membership of pub companies who did not deliver was hollow.
The voluntary withdrawal from the BBPA by Greene King, which has suffered no reputational loss as a result, clearly demonstrates that fact.
"[13]Six revisions of the Framework Code have been published but none of them made any attempt to ensure that was an equitable split of profits between licensees and pubcos (the no worse off principle).
At the same time pressure from campaigning Tenant groups began to gather pace under the Fair Deal for your Local banner[15] and meant further scrutiny from government was inevitable.
The British Institute of Innkeeping, working with the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations, was reported in 2012 to be offering access to its Pubs Advisory Service.
This time carried out by the Business Innovation and Skills department[18] and not the select committees as had been the case in previous years.
The outcome of that consultation was that the Government concluded from over 8000 responses that self-regulation had failed to make enough progress since 2004 (when first offered to the select committee by pubco's) and that a new statutory pubs code was required to address the failures in the sector[19] thereby overturning the policy outlined by Ed Davey back in 2011.
[31] Following two sessions of oral evidence firstly from Mr Newby, then in a joint session of representatives from Punch, Enterprise, the PAS and the BPC, the BIS committee wrote to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 21 July 2016 calling for Mr Newby to be replaced on the grounds of a perception in tenants' eyes of conflict of interest.
This changed in 2020 and The FSB said in its response "against this context, the Scottish Government’s commissioned research on the pub sector, which found that no part of the sector was ‘unfairly disadvantaged’, seems insufficient grounds to rule out legislative action" The Law Society of Scotland said in its response when looking at competition grounds "that where the operating model of a pub tenancy arrangement is such that effective wholesale prices of beer and other products are driven significantly above market value, the cost may be borne by consumers."