A former boss of Midland brewer Marston’s has blamed Britain’s growing Muslim population for the collapse in pub numbers.

Tory peer Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts made the claim in a debate on whether to grant more freedom to landlords tied to big firms. He said “socio-economic factors” such as a growing number of teetotal Muslims living in Britain, played a much bigger role in the decline in pubs than “rapacious” chains.

As Robin Hodgson, the politician was MP for Walsall North for three years until he lost the seat at the 1979 general election. He joined the Lords in 2000 and was a director of Wolverhampton-based Marston’s from 2002.

MPs voted through a cross-party amendment to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which would allow tenants to opt out of being required to sell only alcohol provided by their pub company. Business minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said the Government would accept the principle of the amendment and seek to make it workable.

But Lord Hodgson said he was “very disappointed” the Government was not going to consider overturning the Commons defeat. The Tory peer said the issue was not as “simple and straightforward” as MPs thought and the pub sector was “under serious strain” for other reasons.

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The Ukip member running the party’s South Thanet branch Twitter account is “no longer on the social media site” after mistaking Westminster Cathedral for a mosque. Ukip said it would “probably apologise” after misidentifying the landmark British cathedral.

The party’s South Thanet Branch replied to a tweet from the BBC’s Daily Politics show, asking why it was holding an opinion poll on whether Nigel Farage ‘has what it takes to be Prime Minister’ outside a ‘mosque’. In reply BBC reporter Giles Dilnot tweeted: “You are SO wrong you might be embarrassed by that”.

However, Ukip South Thanet demanded the location of the building, at which Dilnot pointed out it was Westminster Cathedral – the most important Catholic church in Britain.

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A former leader of Ukip has been accused of “diabolical” behaviour after he responded to the publication of a report on the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby by calling on Muslims to “address the violence” in the Qur’an and in “the life and the example” of the prophet Muhammad.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who led Ukip during the last general election, is to be reported to the speaker of the upper house, Lady D’Souza, after he suggested that the Qur’an had inspired Rigby’s killers.

Ukip defended Pearson’s remarks but the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said the peer’s intervention showed that Nigel Farage led a “party of Islamophobes”.

Pearson, who defected to Ukip from the Tories in 2004, took issue with David Cameron’s statement that Rigby’s murder was a betrayal of Islam and of Britain’s Muslim communities.

He told peers: “My lords, are the government aware that Fusilier Rigby’s murderers quoted 22 verses of the Qur’an to justify their atrocity? Therefore, is the prime minister accurate or helpful when he describes it as a betrayal of Islam? Since the vast majority of Muslims are our peace-loving friends, should we not encourage them to address the violence in the Qur’an – and indeed in the life and the example of Muhammad?”

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