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24 Mar 2003 : Column 54—continued
Tessa Jowell: Or not, as the case may be. People will be free to listen to the stories and the event will not carry any new licensing obligation.
I welcome the scrutiny that this Bill has received in the other place and will now receive in this House. The interventions so far have shown that this is not a Bill that divides people on conventional party lines. It will raise many moral and ethical issues, as well as having community and commercial impact. It would have been highly desirable for this Bill to have pre-legislative scrutiny to expose such issues to greater examination at an earlier stage in the parliamentary process. However, we are where we are, and the amendments from the other place do, in some cases, improve the Bill. We do not intend to seek to overturn all of them.
Ross Cranston (Dudley, North): The House of Lords has introduced an amendment to the objectives in the Bill and has also sought to introduce an amenity provision in clause 5. Will she say more about that? I acknowledge what my right hon. Friend has said about balancing crime and disorder concerns with other concerns, and I welcome the draft guidance that she has published.
Tessa Jowell: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that intervention. No, we do not intend to accept that amendment, which I accept was well intentioned and not mischievous, for a very simple reason. I have taken
very careful advice about its impact, and it would constrain the ability to address precisely the problem of public nuisance in a way that the existing objective does not. That amendment uses the term "amenity", which has a different connotation in planning terms, focusing much more on the aesthetic and visual appearance of a place, rather than on the activities that go on there. I have already made it clear that we are keen to ensure that public nuisance, which can arise from licensed premises, is kept under control.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West): I wrote to the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting raising a concern on behalf of some of my constituents who hold a small number of concerts every year in their own homes and raise a considerable amount of money for the Children's Society. He wrote back to me to confirm that their circumstances would be covered by the Bill's licensing provisions because the activity was intended to make a profit. May I put it to the right hon. Lady that raising money for charitable purposes is not most people's ordinary understanding of profitable activities? Will she consider the possibility of exempting even a limited number of concerts or activities from the Bill if their purpose is charitable?
Tessa Jowell: I would be very happy to consider the specific case that the hon. Gentleman raises, and he may seek to do so again in Committee. An amendment was carried in another place that sought to exempt entertainment in public places that involved fewer than 250 people. Again, those who supported that amendment intended it to be a further deregulatory measure, but for reasons that I will set out in a moment, it would have a perverse effect, possibly exposing children to greater risk and denying the expectation of proper protection that people in public places should be able to take for granted. However, I would be very happy to give the hon. Gentleman a considered reply to the specific question that he asks.
Mr. Don Foster (Bath): On whether to reverse amendments passed in another place, does the right hon. Lady agree that, if local authorities are to have a new role as licensing authorities, it is vital that they are given the powers to do the job? Can she therefore assure the House that the Government will not attempt to overturn the amendment passed in another place that will enable local authorities to refuse a licence in the absence of objections where the local authority itself believes that granting that licence would not be in the best interests of the local community?
Tessa Jowell: No, we do not agree with that. That amendment cuts right at the heart of the intention of the Bill. Remember that the statutory consultees who will be consulted on licence applications include a number of local authority departments or agencies, so the local authority will not be out of the consultation loop, but decisions on licensing should be made on the strength of representations, rather than being taken by the local authority without receipt of representations.
Tessa Jowell: I will give way to my right hon. Friend, and then I shall make progress.
Alan Howarth: Of course my right hon. Friend will be aware that many arts organisations are charities. That includes, for example, a number of brass bands. Will she acknowledge the important contribution that brass bands make to our national life? Does she recognise that many of them are in a precarious financial position, particularly those that do not enjoy the benefit of industrial sponsorship? Will she assure me and the brass band movement that the Government will not legislate in the Bill, or at any other time, to add to its difficulties? Indeed, will she undertake also to advise the arts funders that she expects them to make available to brass bands a proper share of the funds that they have to distribute?
Tessa Jowell: I remind my right hon. Friend that this Government stand up for many things, and brass bands are one of the great institutions among them. I know that he will welcome announcements to be made tomorrow by the Arts Council of England on funding for the arts, which, as a result of this Government's commitment to funding the arts up and down the country at the level that people want, is at its highest rate ever.
Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster): Will the Secretary of State give way?
Tessa Jowell: No. I will make some progress.
There is a broad consensus from the responses to consultation on this Bill that the licensing regime is in need of overhaul. It is an inconsistent mish-mash going back to the time of Henry III. For example, it currently allows a five-year-old to drink spirits in a beer garden. It does not require a licence to be held to sell alcohol on a boat but it does insist on one to offer home-made wine on a tombola at a village fete. Current law allows licensing applications to be granted without the voice of local residents being heard, which was the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed). Fixed closing times mean that, in parts of our towns and cities, hundreds of drinkers spill on to the streets at precisely the same time, all of them competing for transport and takeaways. The regime goes from the sublime to the ridiculous: for example, when it requires a policeman to cover his uniform to go into an off-licence.
The process that led to this Bill being presented began with a two-year licensing review, which worked with a full range of interested parties. That review delivered the April 2000 White Paper "Time for Reform". More than 1,200 organisations and individuals responded to it, showing strong support for its proposals. We have continued to work closely with local authorities, the police, people who run licensed premises, performers, children's groups and many others to develop and improve those proposals. The Bill currently before the House enshrines the main principles that emerged from that consultation: the prevention of crime and disorder; public safety; the prevention of public nuisance; and not least the protection of children from harm. Those four aims will provide the yardstick against which licensing judgments will be made.
The deregulatory objective is to strip away unnecessary red tape by amalgamating six existing licensing regimes into a single unified system. For example, it will cut the number of forms that licensed premises in England and Wales currently have to fill in from more than 120 to just a handful.
The Bill is in nine parts. Its key proposals include, first, the transfer of alcohol licensing from magistrates to local authorities, bringing it into line with the other five licensing schemes covered by the Bill, which are already run by local authorities. That will allow the licensing authority to weigh the interests of the local community and of industry. For the first time, and not before time, the Bill gives a powerful voice to local residents and businesses: they will have the right to complain to the licensing authority about new licence applications. They will be able to call for reviews that could lead to existing licences being revised or revoked. All applications for premises and personal licences will have to be advertised to local residents and businesses.
Just as residents get a new voice on local licences, the police will get increased powers to tackle troublemakers. The Bill allows senior police officers to close any licensed premises on the spot for 24 hours when it is, or likely to become the focus of disorder or noise nuisance. They can ask magistrates to extend the closure, which would result in a review of the licence and possibly revocation. That existing, narrower power has only been used four times since its introduction in December 2001, but that low level of use is a testament to its powerful value as a deterrent. Under our new provisions, police could follow that up with on-the-spot action with an extension of the closure of up to 24 hours. To prevent disorder, the Bill provides powers to close down all licensed premises in a particular area where disorder is occurring or expected to occur—around football matches, for example. It also gives the police stronger powers to confiscate alcohol. Abolishing arbitrarily fixed closing times means that the incentive to drink as much as possible before closing time at 11 pm will go. Disorder and nuisance will be reduced as the concentration of people on the street at closing time will fall.
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