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24 Mar 2003 : Column 102—continued
Mr. Andrew Turner: My hon. Friend makes a good case for staggered closing, but how would he ensure that
it followed from the Bill? Surely publicans will continue to remain open until the market determines that they close.
Gregory Barker: No. The ideal system would be for local magistrates to ensure that the licences in a particular area were staggered: one pub would close at 11.15, the pub across the road would close at 11.45 and the other pub would close at 12.30 so that everyone did not rush out into the shopping centre or the pedestrian area at the same time.
Mr. Turner: They would rush from pub to pub.
Gregory Barker: They may do that, but when I was out with the police the single biggest problem that I saw was customers leaving two pubs at the same time, facing up to each other across a street and not just engaging in antisocial behaviour, but starting fights as a direct result.
The Bill may result in people going on to nightclubs rather than being chucked out of pubs at 11 pm or 12 midnight. They may then stop drinking alcohol, chill out, start to relax and stagger home contented at about 5 am rather than going home pumped up with alcohol and testosterone at about midnight.
I am concerned about an unrelated matter—the possible impact on farmers' markets. Numerous people go to Battle farmers' market to sell fantastic organic cider and similar vineyard products. I am worried that the imposition of additional licences will prevent that.
Licensing reform will always attract criticism, and that rightly applies to many parts of the Bill, but there is much common ground. I hope that, given the wide-ranging effects the Bill will have on our popular culture, the Government will continue to listen to voices throughout the country and not just accept the well-argued and responsible amendments from the other place but, in so doing, set a clear course to establish the greatest possible consensus in framing a relevant and dynamic licensing system for a new century.
8.41 pm
Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon): A number of constituents have written to me about the Bill, fearing that it will reduce the availability of music for charitable events. However, it is clear to me from correspondence with Ministers that that is not the intention. I hope the Minister will assure us today that in Committee he will continue discussions with Members and relevant organisations. I was pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that she is keen to continue the debate with the Musicians Union, which is a key element. I certainly want our constituents to go on enjoying good music and charitable events throughout the year.
My constituents are eager to have more input in licensing issues, especially in areas that already contain many clubs and other drinking establishments. In the old town in central Swindon there is already a significant amount of antisocial behaviour associated with the clubs, which poses a real challenge to the local police.
Having said that, I want to concentrate on an issue that is not covered by the Bill and ought to be. A sport that is not currently licensed, and should be, is
motocross. For some years the village of Wanborough has suffered from severe antisocial behaviour, which could be controlled if motocross events were licensable. There have been too many instances of thousands of people descending on a village that has no infrastructure to deal with that.In 1998 we hosted the world championships. About 28,000 people converged on a single village, arriving on country roads that were not equipped to cope with such a large volume of traffic. There were jams, illegal parking and so on. The villagers also had to cope with drunkenness, fighting and noise. Residents returning after the event had started found that their back gardens were being used as car parks, their front gardens were being used for barbecues, and bus shelters were being used as urinals. They found windows smashed, verges cut up and fences broken. Throughout the village we saw the destruction of hedges to provide firewood. The borough council had to deal with tons of mud that had been dumped on to the public roads. That was not only a major headache; it made a substantial dent in the council's budget.
Proper regulation could have avoided a number of those problems. It could have been decided that the event was not suitable for the village, or that it could go ahead only with the appropriate infrastructure. I know that the Government do not want to regulate further, and I am in favour of deregulation when it is appropriate, but good regulation is not anti-business.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am anxious not to cut the hon. Lady off, but she prefaced her remarks by saying that she wanted to deal with matters that were not in the Bill. We are discussing the Second Reading of the Bill before us, and I think the hon. Lady has made her point and should draw these remarks to a close.
Ms Drown: I appreciate your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Bill covers similar activities, and with a slight amendment it could include motocross, just as boxing is included, logically solving the problems experienced by my constituents. This is the obvious Bill for that purpose, so if I may I will finish these comments, as you suggest.
The lack of regulation caused a more responsible business to leave the site because of the many complaints, and because the complaints had a questionable legal basis, no certainty could be given about future events. That business suffered a financial penalty, yet the lack of regulation leaves the community in the hands of irresponsible businesses, which take advantage of the situation to ride roughshod over the wishes and rights of villagers.
There seem to be inconsistencies in the Bill. In schedule 1 entertainment is defined as, among other things, "an indoor sporting event" and "boxing or wrestling entertainment", whether inside or outside. Why is boxing singled out? A simple amendment adding motocross would enable south Swindon to avoid the huge problems that it has experienced. A more logical, wider amendment would include in the definition outside public leisure events attended by more than 500 people, perhaps with the additional specification concerning whether people have to pay to see those events. That would comfort people experiencing problems similar to those in my constituency.
I accept that such an amendment would introduce extra regulation, but regulation can be good for business, for communities and for entertainment.
Gregory Barker: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Drown: No, I am afraid I do not have much time.
I can balance the additional regulation requested by my constituents by offering two possibilities for deregulation. First, the Bill may mean that someone who applies for a licence or for a change in their licence conditions has to place two adverts in local newspapers. At around £400 per application, that would be a heavy burden for small businesses, and it may not be the most effective way of letting local people know of the application. Notices outside the premises, which cost very little, could be more effective, and I hope that the Government will consider that.
My second suggestion relates to delegation of licensing functions to local authority officers. Clause 11 suggests that decisions cannot be delegated to officers in many circumstances, in particular where representations have been made. Elsewhere in the Bill the term "relevant representations" is used, and that would seem to make more sense. Without the word "relevant", the clause does not allow decisions to be delegated, even if all the representations concerning a particular licence or licence change are totally in support of the application, and that seems unnecessarily bureaucratic. Given that the Government want to ensure that the time of councillors and officers is well spent, I hope that the matter can be considered.
Finally, schedule 1, paragraph 2 says that references to an audience include a reference to spectators. There is a potential problem in that a spectator could be someone who is just wandering past, rather than someone attending a specific event. Clarification of those definitions would be useful.
I hope that the Bill will help local people to have a bigger say in the events in their neighbourhood. I urge the Government to consider taking the opportunity to help villagers in my constituency and others in a similar position who have suffered from antisocial behaviour associated with the lack of regulation of major outdoor sporting events such as motocross. They suffer serious and unnecessary disruption, and it should be stopped.
8.48 pm
Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster): My constituency contains the largest number of licensed premises in the UK. Despite all the Government's rhetoric of empowerment, the Bill is fundamentally centralising. I have a great fear that we are sleepwalking into acceptance of the measures, which will have damaging effects wherever there is a large late-night entertainment and alcohol industry.
Given the way that things turn out, I suspect that I may yet end up serving on the Standing Committee, at which point I will have a chance to conduct a little more scrutiny. I appreciate that time is tight and that many other Members want to speak. I hope that we will be voting against the programme motion, although we will not vote against the Bill's Second Reading, partly because we hope that the amendments made in the other
place will remain in the Bill. Many of those amendments were sensible and reflected the active interest of a number of residents' associations in central London.My constituency contains most of the west end of London, including Soho and a chunk of Covent Garden. I will not claim all of the latter for myself, as I see that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) is in his place. He has worked very hard for many years with the Covent Garden residents' association, which I, too, now represent in part. Some deep and meaningful concerns exist in central London. For example, there are 850 licensed premises in Soho and Leicester Square are alone, and we need in part to rein back some of the powers that this very centralising Bill could put in place.
I want to stress to Members who have spent time in Soho—I hope that they were doing the right things, rather than the wrong things—and who perhaps take the view that it is a totally commercial area that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Soho has some 5,000 residents. It is often pointed out that people who buy in Soho—indeed, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) and her husband had a house in a Soho street—know what they are letting themselves in for, and to an extent that is true. As a local councillor, I represented constituents who had homes near a football ground or a pub, but the reality is that in places such as Soho—the same applies in Covent Garden—some 70 per cent. of residents are either social tenants or council tenants. They have no say about where they live, so it is incumbent on all individuals, whether in Parliament or in the local authorities, to do their bit to ensure that the interests of some of the most vulnerable in our society are looked after.
Life in the central London metropolis has a traditional village feel to it and there is no doubt that community values still exist; indeed, Covent Garden and Soho have some 300 to 350 years of history. We should aspire to building up civic society within our cities—this point applies not just to London—and that requires a healthy and growing residential population. We also need to focus on fundamental civilities, rather than on the utter selfishness demonstrated by so many of those who are on our streets in the early hours of the morning. I want us to look back in 50 years' time on thriving places such as Soho, Covent Garden or even the City of London, and reflect on the fact that they are not totally commercial areas, but remain vibrant places in which to live. Many of my constituents have lived in these parts of London for generations, and they understandably feel threatened at the idea of an industry that goes on not only all day, but all night. Indeed, for the first time in 200 years, the residential population of the City of London—the other part of my constituency—has begun to rise again. At the time of the first census, in 1801, the residential population was about 170,000, and it diminished with every subsequent census, until the most recent one. It is important to encourage such thriving inner-city populations.
There has been a rising tide of antisocial behaviour, particularly in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings, throughout much of central London. As several Members have pointed out, the key issue is saturation and the effect of ambient noise in a particular district, which can be cumulative. Members will perhaps be surprised to learn that Westminster city council
provides some 583 late-night licences, 144 of which apply beyond 3 am; of those, 86 apply beyond 4 am. So the idea of binge drinking resulting from a single closing time, and of the so-called benefits of staggered times, do not really hold sway in central London.It is clear from my discussions with the local police that a great increase in the number of licensed premises, or an extension to opening hours, would lead to a commensurate rise in disorder. The notion that abolishing fixed closing times will somehow transform the drinking culture in this country and end alcohol-fuelled violence is in my view optimistic, to put it mildly. However, we should note the inadequacy of public transport and of policing, especially in London. For example, all the tube trains wind up at barely midnight every night. The bus service has improved beyond recognition in recent years, but it does not provide adequate transport from the centre for the many people who need it in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday. It must in part be the responsibility of the huge entertainment industry, because without improvements in that infrastructure there should be no extension to licensing hours.
Several hon. Members have mentioned the confusion in the Government's thinking and objectives. How will allowing all-night drinking achieve many of their other, laudable objectives, such as a reduction in alcohol abuse or in general disorder? We will have to discuss that in great detail in Committee to ensure that we get the legislation right, although I was a little depressed to hear the Secretary of State say that some seven of the nine amendments made by the Lords would be overturned here. I hope that serious consideration will be given to the great work done in the other place, and the contributions made by many local residents associations to the amendments made.
The removal of licensing powers from residents will make the system far less flexible and will undermine the deregulation goal. Discretion is the key and I hope that local authorities will retain their eligibility in their own right to object to applications, and will not have to do so only through their environmental health departments. Otherwise, the risk is that the proposed changes will benefit only large operators in the alcohol and entertainment industries, at the expense of some of the smaller, family-owned restaurants, bars and clubs, many of which still exist, even in my constituency. Many of those establishments have a long-term, traditional stake in their community, and I fear that if they are all taken over by larger operators we will see a pandering to the lowest common denominator.
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