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House of Commons
Monday 7 March 2005
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
HOME OFFICE
The Secretary of State was asked—
"Drinking Responsibly"
1. Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab): What response he has received to his consultation paper "Drinking Responsibly"; and if he will make a statement. [219828]
The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears): The consultation closed on Monday 28 February. We have received more than 150 responses from a wide range of organisations and individuals, including the Local Government Association, trading standards departments, the Association of Chief Police Officers, alcohol trade associations and individual companies, Alcohol Concern and the Portman Group. We shall consider each and every response carefully, and will announce how we plan to proceed as soon as possible.
Iain Wright: I welcome the "Drinking Responsibly" document, especially the chapter on changing the culture. It is right and proper that we change the binge drinking culture that fuels violence and antisocial behaviour. Does my hon. Friend agree that an effective step towards changing that culture is the rapid introduction and implementation of strict drinking banning orders, whereby persistent offenders who cause trouble through irresponsible drinking are banned from town centre areas, and pubs and clubs that continue to sell to those individuals are fined or at worst closed down?
Ms Blears: My hon. Friend has led the campaign—from the front, dare I say?—in his local community and in the House. He is absolutely right; we need to change the culture for the long term and that is why our proposals are not just for drinking banning orders, which will target the minority of people who go out to get drunk and cause trouble, but also include alcohol disorder zones where, again, we are trying to change the culture so that we get people to drink responsibly, not irresponsibly.
Mr. Damian Green (Ashford)
(Con): All the evidence is that people are drinking more and drinking more heavily. Is the Minister seriously telling the House that proposals to introduce 24-hour drinking will actually
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lead to a reduction in the amount of alcohol consumed, or does she accept plain common sense—that it will lead to an increase in the amount of alcohol consumed?
Ms Blears: What we are trying to ensure is that people drink responsibly, and for 90 per cent. of the public that is exactly what they do. They have a good night out with their friends and do not cause trouble. Our policies are designed to target the minority who cause trouble in our town and city centres on a Friday and Saturday night. It is not about 24-hour drinking; it is about flexible licensing hours, which means that we can allow companies to be flexible as long as they are responsible and, most importantly, those decisions will now be made locally by local authorities, in touch with their communities and able to make the decisions in a properly responsible way.
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): Does it worry my hon. Friend that all the good in the Licensing Act 2003 will be undone by uninformed criticism such as the one we have just heard? Is not the answer to that the alcohol harm reduction strategy, and would not that document be more effective if it had the same tough targets and the money to spend as we have for the drugs strategy?
Ms Blears: I am glad that my hon. Friend acknowledges the importance of the alcohol harm reduction strategy, in that it does not simply apply to enforcement but looks at health harms and includes action by the Department for Education and Skills, targeting some of our young people. It is an holistic, overarching strategy. I entirely understand my hon. Friend's point: he wants tough targets behind it. I can assure him that we will be pushing that forward, monitoring and evaluating our progress. He is right that the Licensing Act will help us in many situations. It makes it an offence to sell alcohol to under-18s anywhere—no exemptions—it increases the fine from £1,000 to £5,000, and it allows us to suspend and forfeit licences on the first occasion of an offence, not the second. The Licensing Act is not soft; it is fairly tough legislation.
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): Between 1997 and 2003, the number of people cautioned or convicted for being drunk and disorderly fell by 10,000. Why is that?
Ms Blears: The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the police using their powers to tackle under-age drinking and irresponsible drinking. He will be aware of the fact that we have had two major alcohol misuse enforcement campaigns—one in the summer utilised the new fixed penalty notices that we have brought into effect. I think that 4,000 fixed penalty notices were issued in the first alcohol misuse enforcement campaign. I am saying to the police that they need to use their powers, but that often it is better to use a fixed penalty notice—an on-the-spot fine, a short, sharp shock—rather than a formal prosecution.
David Davis:
If I were the Minister I would not blame the police. The real reason for the failure between 1997 and 2003 is that the Government diverted police
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resources and effort away from basic conventional policing and they let the problem get out of hand. Now, the 24-hour licensing laws that are coming along will make the problem worse. Not only did the Government fail by letting the number of drunk and disorderly charges drop by 10,000, but in that time the number of under-18s cautioned or convicted fell by 80 per cent. The Minister's gimmicks will not solve that. The chief executive of Yates said that her proposals for 24-hour drinking will lead to a dramatic increase in disorder. Why are the Government ignoring expert advice and pressing ahead with 24-hour drinking before they have found a proven solution to the problem?
Ms Blears: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. I was not blaming the police for the situation; I was saying that the police have pressed us to introduce more appropriate powers so that they can deal with irresponsible drinking, and that is exactly what we have done. If he has complaints that officers have been taken off the streets, he need only look to the Conservative party's record—there were 1,100 fewer police officers on our streets while it was in charge. We now have 140,000 police officers and 4,000 community support officers, giving people that visible presence on the streets. I was with a borough commander in Scarborough on Friday who was one of the leading lights of the alcohol misuse enforcement campaign. He said that it was brilliant. The police were able to get out on the streets, do their business and make a real difference in their town centre.
Mr. Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab): Has my hon. Friend received any representation on foetal alcohol syndrome and the serious dangers to children posed by women drinking during pregnancy? If so, will she discuss these matters with her colleagues at the Department of Health?
Ms Blears: Yes, I am aware of the importance of that extremely distressing condition. That is why, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), the alcohol harm reduction strategy involves not just the Home Office, but, crucially, the Department of Health, which is a joint sponsor of the strategy with us. Of course, I will continue to discuss these matters, together with the effects of chronic drinking, which is also a concern for us. We are now beginning to see people in hospital with liver diseases at an earlier age than ever before. Therefore, as well as binge drinking we also need to tackle chronic drinking.
Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester) (LD): The Minister will be aware that the fees paid by licensed premises have been restructured so that large, city drinking venues pay more, quite rightly—but will she explain why nightclubs have been excluded from the new regime? Is she aware that the industry claims on its website to have "played a blinder" in the negotiations with the Government by avoiding paying the new fee? Surely it is not just pubs that cause problems on Friday and Saturday nights. Many of the problems relate to nightclubs. Why have they been excluded from the new fee arrangement?
Ms Blears:
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that we had several revisions of the proposed licensing
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fee structure as a result of consultation with local authorities and the industry. We now have a fee structure that will meet the costs not just of administration but, importantly, inspection and enforcement as well. Certainly, my dealings with the LGA indicate that it is content with the current fee structure. We have undertaken to review it again in 12 months' time to find out whether it meets all those requirements. He knows that we have included factors to multiply the amount paid by those premises that are likely to cause the most harm and the most risk. That is an entirely proportionate way to approach the subject, and we have tried to get as much consensus as we can. I am delighted that my colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, through negotiation with the industry and the LGA, have achieved such a satisfactory result.
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