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Pub Companies

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We do need to give the self-regulatory regime time to work, and I pay tribute to him, and even to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West—[Hon. Members: ““Even?””] I say ““even”” because we do not always see eye to eye on every measure. However, both my hon. Friends have campaigned very hard, and I can tell the House that in my meeting with the BBPA, my hon. Friends' campaigns and the Select Committee reports were critical to my being able to make it absolutely clear that, this time, the pubcos really had to come up with the toughest self-regulatory regime imaginable, or else Parliament would wish to take action. We have come up with the toughest self-regulatory regime imaginable, but it needs time to work. I commend our response to the Select Committee to the House.