Kevin Bonavia

I add my thanks to the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood). This is a really important topic and I think every Member here today has done a sterling job in speaking up for the public houses in their communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) just hit the nail on the head in her comprehensive contribution. The point is that we have to be very careful about what measures we take in this place in trying to support the pubs that we care for and love. We have to think about all the ways in which we can help pubs. First, what do we all agree on in this House? I think we all agree that pubs are at the heart of our shared national identity. For centuries, they have provided the places where strangers will socialise, friendships are formed, local traditions are sustained and communities come together. They are part of our national story, but they are also part of the everyday lives, here and now, of people in towns and villages across the country. There are those who, if trying to survey the worth of a public house, would start by evaluating the land it is built on and the size of its rooms, surveying the roof and the foundations for damage and so on. But I believe that what we have heard from Members today is an understanding that that method would fall far short of the true value that a pub holds in our community. It is more than the sum of its parts and the fabric of its building. It is centuries of conversation echoed off its walls, the generations of locals who have passed through its doors and worn the floorboards smooth, and the warm embrace it provides to individuals and families. It is knowing that you are in your local, that you are with friends and neighbours, and that when a stranger comes in you introduce yourself to them. You hear what is going on and keep in touch not on your mobile phone, but with living human beings. A pub can serve as a living memory of the community in which it sits. That is why it is the clearest embodiment of heritage that I can think of. Despite the many differences in life today compared with the past, and changes in how many of us think of pubs, change is not unique to our time. I represent Stevenage, a town with a distinctive place in our national history as Britain’s first post-war new town, 80 years old next month. Do come along and celebrate with us.