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Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): Does my hon. Friend agree that the policies of restricting out-of-town development and the insistence on building mixed economies in the centre of our cities, which were started under the previous Government and continued by this Government, are important to his point? People who live in the centre of cities must be considered alongside the 24-hour people who travel in and out of the centre. That point is even more urgent than it was 20 years ago, when there was a division between the commercial and the residential.
Mr. Field: I could not agree more, and it may have been unfair of me to fail to point out the successes of the previous Conservative Administration in which, of course, my right hon. Friend played a leading role. He hit the nail on the head.
The number of licensed premises in the City of Westminster as a whole has grown to more than 3,000, two thirds of which are located in the small stress area commonly known as the west end. For the last full calendar year, Westminster received some 1,024 applications relating to entertainment licences and night café licences, only 14 of which were refused. That is an enormous burden, and moving from the transitional arrangements to an entirely new regime in such a short time will lead to an administrative logjam in Westminster. It will be very difficult to make a smooth transition.
In the past year, 812 applications were made for public entertainment licences and night café licences and only a small number were refused. I hope that the Minister will give some thought to how a transitional regime that gives only eight or nine weeks notice can possibly work in the larger London boroughs.
Discussion has taken place at various stages about fees, and I do not wish to reiterate the arguments. However, an extended night-time economy means that local authorities face numerous significant costs and burdens. It is vital that they have the ability to manage their town centres using locally determined strategies in partnership with all stakeholders. Under the Bill, authorities will also have substantial extra administrative costs, to which we have referred. The local authorities believe that any licensing regime must allow councils to recoup the cost of delivering the scheme. It is not seen, and should not be seen, as a money-spinner to allow local councils to make significant sums of money. We went into considerable detail in Committee to explain that no one considers it to be a money-spinner. Indeed, the large costs incurred for some of the highlighted premises—for example, the Royal Albert hall, which pays some £12,000 to £15,000 a year—were something of a loss leader for Westminster city council.
As well as a smooth transition, local authorities wish to ensure that they have the ability to set locally determined fees that reflect local circumstances, but based on Government guidelines indicating applicable costs, instead of relying on centrally prescribed fixed amounts, as currently proposed. The initial start-up costs for the City of Westminster, before it received any applications, would be about £100,000 and the projected fee income—based on an average of £300 in the transition year—would be just under £972,000, or just under £1 million.
That would lead, on the council's calculation, to a shortfall of £200,000 in administrative costs.
I hope that the Minister can give some guidance on fees. I accept that I have gone slightly beyond the amendments, but the point is a relevant one. I also seek some guidance on the transitional arrangements.
11.15 pm
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham): I should normally favour deregulation and greater freedom and choice, but I have been swayed by the arguments this evening and by my reading elsewhere. There is a real problem, and I hope that the Minister listens attentively and sensitively.
The nub of the Bill is summed up in the dilemma posed by the amendments. On the one hand, many of us would like businesses to have greater freedom to provide a wider range of service and choice to their customers. On the other hand, we all represent people who live close to licensed premises, and they have rights as well. They have bought their properties on the basis of a certain licensing regime and a certain pattern of conduct. They will naturally be very upset if that pattern of conduct is changed rapidly and in a direction that is adverse to their interests. I hope that the Minister understands that this is a real issue and that the amendments modestly try to make small improvements for those who live near licensed premises.
I assure the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) is right to say that the provisions apply not only to his own part of London. They could apply to any major urban or metropolitan area, in towns and elsewhere. Conflicts can arise between businesses and licence users and residents. My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) rightly reminded us that getting more life into our inner cities has been a bipartisan policy. We all welcome it, but there must be some restriction of antisocial conduct and prevention of antisocial hours from getting out of control or being permitted or encouraged so that the amenity of a city is wrecked for those who live or work in it.
I hope that the Minister will respond positively to the modest suggestion of a longer transition period, albeit still a short one given the complexities in many areas of licensing. A great deal of work remains to be done. I hope that he will also respond sympathetically to the idea of undertakings so that people can be reassured that there will not be sudden lurches in the regime.
Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield): My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) spoke with great knowledge, having participated considerably in the Standing Committee on the Bill. He expressed intimate knowledge of his constituency here in the centre of London.
I rise primarily to support the brief but accurately expressed case of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). As several speakers have said, this issue is not just for the large cities. It relates to many towns and large villages up and down the country. In my own constituency, there are severe problems with antisocial behaviour resulting from alcohol abuse, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights in the centre of Macclesfield. That makes it extremely unpleasant for those who go there to dine out or to drink modestly and to behave and enjoy themselves. It creates tremendous problems for those who live in the town centre.
Antisocial behaviour is a problem, and the police find it extremely difficult to do anything about it. I hope that the Minister will give rational responses to the many points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, but I support the case put by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras for ensuring that the undertakings and conditions applying to existing licences can be carried forward to the new regime.
The Report stage of a Bill offers Back Benchers who were unable to speak on Second Reading or were not members of the Standing Committee their only opportunity to advance the interests of their constituents and constituencies. The Minister has a reputation for sensitivity and for being rational and helpful to Members of Parliament who have experience of the matters that we are discussing, so will he respond positively to the amendments?
Why is it not possible to carry existing undertakings forward into the new regime? That could be simply done. The Government could help the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras to deal with any
modest drafting deficiencies in the provisions, or could themselves put them right in due course, if they are unable to do so at present. The amendment is reasonable and it has cross-party support. The House is trying to come to the right decision and I strongly support the amendment for which the right hon. Gentleman so ably argued.
Dr. Howells: It is extremely refreshing to hear the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) and his right hon. and hon. Friends argue the case for residents. If the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber earlier this evening, he would have heard me berated from both sides of the House for wanting to retain a bit of regulation covering loud rock bands playing in pubs, and for not giving developers a cast-iron right, as the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) wanted, to open up huge pubs, no matter what might happen to the community. It was wonderful to hear the contribution of the hon. Member for Macclesfield, and I am glad that he made it.
It was interesting to hear the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) say that we need to get people back into our city centres. The right hon. Gentleman is a cultured man, so he will have seen Hogarth's Gin Lane paintings. The problems are not new; they have always been with us. The scale, however, is phenomenal.
In Committee, we talked a great deal about the huge number of people who migrate to our cities on Friday and Saturday nights. As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) reminded us, nowhere attracts people like the west end of London; it always has, and I hope that it always will. The hon. Gentleman might also have mentioned Manchester, where the police tell me that 150,000 people go in to the centre, many, but not all of them, to drink.
The hon. Member for Macclesfield made an important point about businesses such as high-quality restaurants. When I was in Manchester, I was told that the clientele of such restaurants found the atmosphere on the street rather intimidating. It is not that people set out to be intimidating, but that where there are 150,000 young men and women who might have drunk a bit too much, a person could feel a little insecure late on a Saturday night when they were out with their family enjoying a good meal in a good restaurant. We need to take that into account.
The group of amendments broadly covers some of the issues that will emerge during transition from the old licensing regime to the regime established by the Bill. I am not sure that amendment No. 61, which was moved by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, would achieve the effect that he intended. It would certainly amend the Data Protection Act 1998 so as to maintain the ability to disclose information under section 35(1), which is otherwise subject to non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is required by law or made in connection with legal proceedings in respect of certain information pertaining to clubs, companies or other legal persons notwithstanding the repeal of certain provisions in the Licensing Act 1964.
In our view, amendment No. 61 is wholly unnecessary. Section 35(1) of the 1998 Act will continue to apply, and appropriate protections of personal data
in the 1998 Act will continue to apply to information and data held by licensing authorities for the purposes of their licensing functions. Maintaining the ability to disclose information as required by law and in the context of legal proceedings is right, in the Government's view.Clause 180, which will permit the provision of information to other licensing authorities and responsible authorities, is restricted to the purpose of facilitating the exercise of the authority's functions under the Bill. That is as it should be. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire shakes his head, but I had hoped that that would give him some comfort.
It may be sensible for me to deal with amendments Nos. 169, 170, 179 and 180 next, because they also address converted licences and undertakings. Although adopting slightly different approaches, those amendments would require a premises licence to be granted under the conversion provisions in schedule 8, subject to such conditions as reproduced the effect of the undertakings subject to which the existing licence or licences—for example, a justices' licence—had been granted or renewed.
The Bill will provide comprehensively that conditions attached to the existing licences will be reproduced in the new premises licence. In other words, everything that the licensing justices, for example, thought should be legally enforceable and which was within their discretion to impose would be attached as conditions to those existing licences. However, that is slightly different from what was proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, as he has explained.
Undertakings are very different from what I have just described, and it is important to understand what they are. I chose the example of a justices' licence because that is the area of current licensing where undertakings are often mentioned. Indeed, such undertakings most commonly arise in the context of justices' off-licences, such as those held by supermarkets.
Undertakings, which are sometimes sought by licensing justices, have no legal force. For the content of undertakings to have legal force, they must form conditions in existing licences. Undertakings may be considered by the justices when licences are being renewed, and if the undertakings have been broken, it could lead to the renewal of licences being refused. That is a very useful tool, but it is a discretionary practice, and we have discovered that it is carried on only by certain justices. However, any breach of an undertaking cannot of itself lead to a criminal prosecution, as would be the case with licence conditions, and undertakings cannot be enforced.
In essence, such undertakings are entirely voluntary, and as such they do not attach to a licence. Under current legislation, they amount to no more than a personal promise by the applicant for a licence or a renewal. The question therefore is whether such promises should be made mandatory for licence conversion applicants under paragraph 2 of schedule 8, to provide information on such non-legal, personal matters, giving those undertakings new legal status and
force, but it should be remembered that they may have existed without legal status or force for a number of years. That presents a difficulty.
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