| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
24 Mar 2003 : Column 97—continued
Dr. Howells: I should certainly like to confirm that it is entirely possible for a pub chain, for example, to own more than one premises licence and, indeed, to own the licences for all its premises.
John Thurso: I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point, which was not completely obvious from the drafting.
May I also draw the Minister's attention to the provision allowing for the removal of a licence? Clause 27 provides that when a company goes into administration, the licence can be removed. That seems unnecessarily harsh on those doing the work, as a company can go into administration but be perfectly viable. Will he be kind enough to consider that issue at a later stage?
My second concern relates to the licensing of the people themselves. The drafting of the Bill seems unnecessarily to complicate the process. So many things have to be done to get and hold a licence. For example, clause 125 covers notification of a change of address. That involves fees and the possibility of committing a criminal offence if one does not provide the new address. It is a bit harsh if a person who holds a centrally registered licence and leaves the industry for two or three years to do an MBA at Cranfield before returning to run a pub finds that he has committed a criminal offence and has the licence removed simply for failing to register a change of address while inactive. I wonder whether that is the proper way to proceed.
Furthermore, the first application for a premises licence requires a person to be conjoined to it. Indeed, four clauses allow for circumstances in which someone builds a new property but has not yet found a manager. Clauses 29, 30, 31 and 32 allow for provisional circumstances. If the person and the premises did not have to be conjoined, those four clauses could be omitted. I hope that those who serve on the Committee that considers the Bill will examine that because some refinement could be introduced.
I believe that the industry will warmly welcome the Bill. It will allow those of us who like to enjoy moderate social drinking at slightly different hours to do so. It will allow us to offer a better product to visitors from abroad and people in this country. It deserves our support.
8.21 pm
Diana Organ (Forest of Dean): I, too, welcome the Bill. It is brave of the Government to introduce it because, as was said earlier, it reforms many old measures and is the first major change to the system for 40 years. However, it has caused controversy and I believe that it should have been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. We might not then have received large mailbags from our constituents, reflecting anxieties that were often unfounded or based on misleading information.
It is good that the Bill tries to bring the licensing of the sale of alcohol under the control of a single system. It also deals with other forms of licensing—for music, dancing, theatre and cinema. Indeed, it covers all the fun bits of life. The measure licenses what we all enjoy as part of our social life.
I have one or two anxieties. Magistrates in the Forest of Dean have been especially worried that their expertise in licensing will be lost. The local authority is concerned about receiving yet another statutory burden, possibly without extra moneys to cope with it. However, many people in the area welcome the accountability that the change will introduce into the licensing system.
Many myths have surrounded the Bill. Like other hon. Members, I have heard people suggest that the measure makes carol singing, bell ringing, singing "Happy Birthday" in a pub illegal, and provides that music tuition and rehearsals must be licensed. I am glad to say that that is all unfounded nonsense.
The Government have made it clear that they will agree to some Lords amendments but that they cannot accept others. I understand their reasons for not agreeing with Lords amendments that would provide
for not licensing an event of 250 or fewer people. That is a matter of public safety and misuse of alcohol. It is right to examine all places where alcohol is sold and not simply base decisions on numbers. We would all be severely worried by a dangerous or disorderly incident involving 200 people in a village hall going on the rampage, especially if the event were unlicensed.I would be interested in other amendments that the Government tabled to allay many fears of constituents. I am glad that the exemption on churches and village halls has been lifted but I wonder about educational establishments. I have received many letters that express concern about that.
I would welcome some clarification. The Bill provides for protecting children. For the first time, legislation will provide that under-18s may not drink alcohol in a pub. The Minister said on a previous occasion that an old measure meant that children as young as five or six could drink alcohol in a beer garden or at a specific distance from a bar. The Bill strengthens the restriction but is also flexible. It provides that 16 and 17-year-olds may drink alcohol of less than spirit strength with a meal if accompanied by an adult. I am a little worried about what constitutes a meal. Let us consider circumstances in which an 18-year-old young man is in a pub with five 16-year-old friends. He buys one round of sandwiches, shares them among his friends, does not buy more food but can continue purchasing drinks for the 16-year-olds.
Dr. Howells: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because I appreciate that she does not have much time. According to the Licensing Act 1964, the definition is
- "a meal eaten by a person seated at a table, or at a counter or other structure which serves the purpose of a table and is not used for the service of refreshments for consumption by persons not seated at a table or structure serving the purpose of a table".
Diana Organ: Let us hope that a substantial sandwich does not have to be shared between too many under-age drinkers.
The Forest of Dean is a rural area, which has many village halls. They can currently have 12 temporary notices, with the licensee being a committee member or the head of an organisation that holds an event. Although it is good news that village halls will be exempt from the fee, the five events a year for which the Bill provides are not enough for many halls. They use the income from events that might involve alcohol, such as weddings, birthday parties, the annual general meeting of the marrow growers association and Weight Watchers. Five events are not enough and village halls have asked for the number of events to be restored to 12 or even increased, if the Minister could be so generous to the halls, which are an important part of rural communities.
The third issue has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), among others. It was also raised by Alison Childs, the co-ordinator of the Forest of Dean farmers' market project. As a result of foot and mouth disease in the Forest of Dean,
Countryside Agency money was made available to help us to establish farmers' markets, of which there are now three. In fact, they have just had their first birthday. When I went to visit the market in Lydney last Friday, the matter was raised with me again. It relates to the problem of alcohol licensing for stalls, which provide a new market for small providers, and can be viewed as a developmental and promotional stage for small producers and businesses hoping to supply to local retailers.In my area, we have a small local brewery, a small cider maker and various wine producers. In the wake of foot and mouth, the farmers' markets have meant the difference between survival and bankruptcy for those producers. The problem that they have raised with me is that the Bill could make it very difficult and expensive for farmers' markets to arrange a licence if they were going to meet 50 times a year or more, or if a producer was going to go to more than one farmers' market or to local shows. This would be an expense and a bureaucratic problem, and it would make it difficult for us to build up a wide variety of stalls in our farmers' markets and to make them successful. I hope that it will be possible to examine this issue in Committee and to bring assistance to this much-needed activity in our areas.
I welcome the Bill, but it must implement a single integrated scheme to make licensing accountable for local residents. It is important that, for the first time, the Government are taking really tough measures to tackle alcohol-related disorders and crime. It is also important that we have recognised that alcohol abuse is a problem in society and that we should protect our children in that regard. I therefore welcome the Bill.
8.30 pm
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle): Deliberating on the liberalisation of the licensing laws while our troops are in combat in a foreign war could seem frivolous to some people looking in from the outside. I certainly paused for thought before considering trying to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But however serious the events unfolding in the Gulf may be, the work of Parliament must clearly continue and this Bill has profound implications for the everyday lives of thousands of my constituents.
I would like to start by taking the opportunity to recognise the hard work of many peers in the other place to amend the Bill to remove many of its over-zealous regulatory—and occasionally plain silly—provisions. I recognise, however, the Government's willingness to show a degree of flexibility in accepting reasonable amendments, and I welcome many elements of the Bill.
The alarm that the Bill originally caused in the many villages and small communities in my constituency was very real and extremely vocal. For them, it represented a clear and direct threat to our local churches and village halls. The anger engendered by the original proposals to license and effectively restrict or curtail performances in parish churches—the like of which have taken place uninterrupted for centuries—gave voice to many people who would normally never think of writing to their MP or lobbying the Government. I wholeheartedly shared their sense of outrage that such an extraordinary intrusion into the lives of ordinary people should ever
find its way into draft legislation. I am particularly grateful to the rectors of Peasmarsh in my constituency and St. Augustine's in Bexhill for drawing to my attention the calamitous effect on our churches and church halls that the earlier provisions in the Bill would have had.In total, the Government have suffered nine defeats and been forced to make seven further significant concessions. This is a result not only of Conservative pressure but of pressure from many people and groups of all political persuasions throughout the country. As a result, among the many welcome changes, churches have now been exempted from licensing, and village halls will at least not have to pay fees. I also want to highlight another welcome change—the removal altogether of the requirement for a licence from smaller premises offering entertainment before 11.30 pm. This is a truly deregulatory measure that deserves support from both sides of the House.
As originally drafted, the Licensing Bill would have resulted in a huge extra burden of costs and bureaucracy. Much of this has been removed by the amendments made in the House of Lords. Like others in the Conservative party, I believe that if the Government are genuine in their claim that they wish to reduce the burden of regulation, they must accept these constructive changes and not seek to overturn them in this House. I was, therefore, encouraged by the Secretary of State's earlier comments that she was minded to accept many of the amendments, but clearly we shall want to see what that means in practice. The Government must listen to the thousands of musicians, churchgoers and others up and down the country who support the amendments that have been made. Throwing out just some of those amendments would make the Bill a poorer piece of legislation.
Despite promising a Bill to amend the licensing laws before the last general election, the Government did not include such a Bill in the 2001–02 parliamentary Session. Most 18-year-olds will remember receiving a text message on general election day in 2001 promising 24-hour drinking if they voted Labour. I suspect that they would have expected the Government to deliver that novel election pledge rather sooner.
During the last Session, the Government introduced a number of minor changes to the licensing laws by increasing police powers to deal with disturbances, making it an offence for anyone knowingly to serve alcohol to a minor or to buy alcohol on their behalf, allowing the extension of opening hours on Sundays and on new year's eve 2001, and allowing premises to charge entry for dance events on Sundays.
In April 2002, the Government published a consultation document, which proposed continuous opening hours on new year's eve through to new year's day. The Bill was finally published in November, and it followed all the proposals anticipated from the White Paper and related media reports. However, a closer look at its substance showed that it did not quite live up to the Government's claims. Indeed, it contained a number of significant defects.
First, I suspect that the proposed system would lead to higher costs and more regulation rather than the reverse. A founding principle of the Bill is the split licence—one personal and one for the premises—but
that sound structure is threatened by the requirement to name the licensee on the premises licence. The effect of that will be to require a new licence application to be made every time that a manager changes, imposing unnecessary burdens on licensing authorities and business. A licensee simply registering with the authorities, as envisaged in the White Paper, would achieve the same result while significantly reducing the required paperwork by sweeping away four clauses and 14 subsections.Secondly, I agree with the widespread concern, expressed most notably by the Magistrates Association as well as by other Members who have spoken, that the case has not been sufficiently made to transfer responsibility for issuing licences from magistrates courts to local authorities. Indeed, according to the association, the evidence on public entertainment licences, which were transferred to local authorities in 1983, appears to be to the contrary.
Although the Local Government Association broadly supports that transfer of responsibility, I have my doubts, and those are shared, to some extent, by the leaders of Rother and Wealden district councils, which, between them, are responsible for my constituency of Bexhill and Battle. Although deferring local powers to local people is indeed to be welcomed, my conversations with district councils have highlighted very real concerns.
Following recent central Government local authority funding cuts, the leader of Rother district council noted the strains that the Bill will place on the already overstretched resources of local authorities. The bureaucratic and training requirements involved in setting up new licensing systems will stretch their budgets. Likewise, the leader of Wealden district council has predicted funding difficulties for local authorities as there are no provisions for the costs of setting up the new system. Perhaps the Minister will elucidate on that in his winding-up speech.
Thirdly, on entering the Lords, the Bill was also deficient in terms of the powers to be conferred on local authorities to manage an extended night-time economy. I am concerned about whether there will be sufficient safeguards for local residents—my constituents have referred to that in correspondence—particularly in areas where there will be a high concentration of late-night drinking establishments. However, that could also lead to the unnecessary politicisation of every single licence application, which could lead to numerous unwelcome anomalies in how the new regime is implemented.
I greatly welcome the staggered licensing hours proposals, and I do not share some of the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale). My support for staggered closing is a direct result of my experience of patrolling local town centres with Sussex police to observe emptying-out time and all the associated antisocial behaviour at first hand.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |