Kevin Bonavia

Kevin Bonavia

Labour — Stevenage

Speaking in the House of Commons on 16 October 2026

Debate

Heritage Public Houses Bill

Contribution

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Far be it from me to cast aspersions about where Liam Gallagher has been drinking around the country, but I am sure wherever he goes, he brings joy to the venues he attends. The point about the Man in the Moon in Stevenage is that although it is only a few decades old, we need to make sure that it is remembered for its heritage over those decades, not hundreds of years ago. That is a point that I do not think this Bill addresses head-on. The Rose & Crown in Aston is another pub that was not going to survive. In that case, residents bought community shares in the pub and it survived, so we have two examples of pubs surviving in my constituency. That is great—the mechanisms are in place, but people need to be willing to come forward and need the funds to do it. To come back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours) said earlier, we need to make sure that when the community has that will, it also has the ability to purchase and run these pubs. That is no mean feat, and it is not simply about legislation; we have to think far more about how we make that possible. I hope the Minister can touch on that issue in her winding-up remarks. I have given the House examples from Stevenage of why protection of our pubs matters. As has been said by other Members, we already have protections in place, and new ones will come in this year and next through the devolution Act. I encourage other communities to take advantage of those protections, but beyond that, we need to make sure that we are protecting existing pubs and other enterprises.

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