6. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of planning consent and change of use in relation to pubs in Wales? OAQ51734

We do recognise the important contribution that pubs make to communities. We are working with community groups and other representatives, including the Campaign for Real Ale—I declare an interest as a member—on how best to protect premises and facilities and help bring people together. I've always said that a community without a pub is a collection of houses. Quite often, I've seen this happen in my part of the world. We will be consulting on a review of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order in May, with a view to looking at how we can better protect our pubs. 

Thanks for that response. Yes, you mentioned on a previous occasion that you were a member of CAMRA, and it's good that you are involved in the real ale sphere. We are trying to—. We've got a cross-party group now. Nick is involved in it as well. Simon Thomas is running it. We're going to, hopefully, help you to push this forward, because we have been waiting rather a long time for a statement on this. I don't want to anticipate what your review is going to come up with, but we do have the—well, they do have the—Localism Act 2011 in England now, so that does give some protection to pubs as assets of community value. Might that be the direction that you could be thinking about going down in Wales?  

Well, we have been working with CAMRA, and that work has been helpful to explore the implications of splitting the A3 food and drink use class, and we will look at how that might work. We're also considering the recommendations made by the University of the West of England in terms of the operation of the use classes Order, and I mentioned how the consultation will proceed in that regard. It is true to say that, for some pubs, the business is no longer viable, but there are many pubs that I know of where it was a perfectly viable business but there was more money to be made by turning those pubs into flats. That is what we have to guard against in the future, because pubs are hugely important assets to our towns and villages and communities across Wales, and we want to make sure that we can do all that we can to protect those that are viable and provide such a service to locals.

I've also been involved in the CAMRA sphere over the years, First Minister, so we have something in common that we can talk about over a pint sometime. I agree with the sentiments that Gareth Bennett mentioned. There was a CAMRA event held at the Assembly last week, and I'm pleased to see the cross-party group on beer and the pub being re-established. There are many issues facing pubs across Wales. You were right to say in your answer, First Minister, that pubs aren't just pubs. They are, for many of our rural communities particularly, the heart of our communities, and, when you lose the pub, you lose the hub of the local community. At the CAMRA event we heard that many pubs in Wales are closing a week, and, across the border in England, planning law's been changed to make change of use more difficult. Are you looking to follow through with similar changes here? I hear what you're saying about bringing an Order forward later in the year. Will you be looking at restricting planning law so that it's much more difficult to change a pub, particularly in a rural area, into another use?   

All options are open, in terms of how that's done. We want to find the most effective way of doing it in order to make sure that our pubs are protected.