Appendix 15
Letter to the Clerk of the Deregulation and Regulatory
Reform Committee from the Director of the British Beer and Pub
Association (dated 5 October 2001)
Proposal for the Regulatory Reform (Special Occasions
Licensing) Order 2001
Thank you for your letter to the Brewers and Licensed
Retailers Association of 19th July. We have recently
changed our name and address details to those outlined above.
We appreciate that the timetable for Parliamentary scrutiny is
such that it will not be possible for the Order to come into effect
until, at the earliest, early to mid-December. This was also the
case in 1999/2000 and you are correct in assuming that uncertainty
at such a late stage did lead to licensees applying for special
orders of exemption and would almost certainly lead to the same
situation this year.
However, whilst this does diminish the practical
value of the Order it does not negate it completely. There are
two reasons for this. Firstly, special orders of exemption are
granted by the Magistrates on a local basis and will therefore
not necessarily allow the full hours as contained in the Regulatory
Reform proposal. Even if this were achieved in some places, it
would not be universal across England and Wales. Secondly, the
proposals are intended as a "trial
run"
for future years. The consultation papers clearly showed that
the Millennium experience was a positive one but also that there
was a need to repeat the exercise at a more usual time to ensure
that this would be the case in the future. The industry has already
missed out on the opportunity to demonstrate this over the New
Year 2000/2001 and would be extremely disappointed if they were
to miss yet another opportunity at the end of this year.
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