Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
21 DECEMBER 2004
MR PHILIP
DOYLE, MR
STEPHEN GREEN,
PROFESSOR DICK
HOBBS, MR
JOHN HUTSON
AND MS
CLARE EAMES
Q200 Chairman: There were big changes
in the brewery and pub-owning industry in the late 1980s and early
1990s because of the competition policy. Has that contributed
to the problem?
Professor Hobbs: Yes, I think
it has. I think we have seen the national chains come up and become
more important than the brewers. You see players such as Wetherspoon,
Yates etc replicating their practice around the country in city
centres. I think the high street chains have become more important.
Q201 Chairman: Professor Hobbs has just
mentioned the under 25s, within that group who are the main perpetrators,
Chief Constable?
Mr Green: We have done some analysis
on the year to date to look at that very thing and, without a
doubt, the dominant group in there is where the offender is aged
between 18-24 and the victim is aged between 18-24; the dominant
offender group and the dominant victim group come from exactly
the same age source. In addition to that the dominant social status,
if that is the right expression, of those offenders and victims
is students and unemployed people. They tend again to be around
one-fifth each of the victim and offender groups.
Q202 Chairman: It is mainly students
and unemployed people; it is not young people who are in work?
Mr Green: There are young people
who are in work and, in fairness, there are some fragilities around
our recording practices, so I would not say that is absolute gospel.
Where we have recorded someone's employment status, around one-fifth
of those people have said they are students, and around one-fifth
have said they are unemployed. When you look at those people as
a proportion of the population, they would appear to be over-represented
in the victim and offender groups. In victim and offender terms,
the dominant age is 18-24.
Q203 Chairman: And the gender?
Mr Green: Male. In fairness, Chairman,
there is an increasing proportion of females and I think the split
is about 60:40[1],
something of that nature. It is not that it is exclusively male,
but we still see the dominant group as being male.
Q204 Chairman: A brief answer please
because we will go into detail in each area of policy in just
a moment. We have had a plethora of initiatives over the last
three or four years around this problem—new policing powers,
policing methods, the promotion of responsible drinking by the
alcohol industry, health promotion messages and licensing changes.
Taken altogether, in the light of all those new measures, is the
situation getting worse or getting better?
Professor Hobbs: I do not think
we know. No proper evaluation has been carried out of those measures.
For many years it was impossible to get local authorities, and
indeed most police forces, to acknowledge that they had a problem,
which is important because the police, in particular, were part
of local regeneration partnerships. It was very difficult for
them to formally acknowledge in most city centres we researched
that they had a problem. For them to say there was a problem,
in Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield or whatever, may impact upon
inward investment, and it may create adverse publicity for that
city centre. It was very difficult for them to say anything. In
terms of the recent plethora of measures brought to bear on certain
aspects of this problem, frankly, I do not think we know because
it has not been properly evaluated. I look forward to it being
properly evaluated.
Mr Doyle: I think there is a greater
awareness of the problem. It is very difficult to put some numbers
on the extent of the problem. Speaking to colleagues and other
licensing officers both in London and at our conference (which
you kindly attended) in Blackpool, it is apparent there is a greater
awareness of drink-related violence and disorder, particularly
in city centres.
Mr Green: I think it has not got
better. I cannot objectively prove it has got worse. There is
a Home Office research document from 1999 on the relationship
of alcohol and crime, and everything in here—irresponsible
drinks promotion, the predominance of young people involved, the
risks of premises where there are no tables and chairs—is
based on research which was done in the early to mid 1990s; so
you would have to say that nothing has changed in that regard.
Certainly we did a major initiative in 2001 where we did everything.
We did enforcement; we did education; we did proactive work with
licensees; and we achieved a reduction in violent crime over the
year of about 11%; but then the money ran out, because it was
a Home Office funded project, and the following year the violent
crime went back up again. Whilst we were able to achieve some
benefit it was extremely short-lived, and now the violent crime
figures are as high as they were before it was done. I think it
is possible to make an impact, but we have not made a long-term
impact; and certainly I would not be willing to say that things
had got better.
Mr Hutson: I agree with Mr Doyle
in principle. I think there has been a big change. In the last
year or so there has been a greater awareness of the kind of issue
we are talking about today. Although it is only anecdotal, I do
believe that the licensed industry, and ourselves included, have
made big improvements to their operating procedures to try and
deal with a lot of these issues, often in partnership with local
schemes with the police or town centre management schemes. Our
own view is that in the last 12 months we have made great strides.
For example, this year we have introduced a code of conduct. We
think things like that are positive moves and do have a positive
effect.
Q205 Mr Prosser: Mr Green, what is your
assessment of the effect if the new Licensing Act 2003 on these
issues of alcohol-related crime and disorder in towns and city
centres?
Mr Green: I think in every sense
of the word the jury is still out. There are a huge number of
unknowns. If I could perhaps sketch through things I see as some
of those great unknowns: I think how robust the actual regulatory
regime is, in the face of what will undoubtedly be sustained and
well-resourced assaults by legal representatives of different
companies, does remain to be seen. The test for me will be, will
the local authority have the power to be able to design the kind
of town or city centre that it wants to create; or will it be
at the mercy of the legal process where decisions have been overturned
in the courts, and is unable to achieve what it sets out to achieve?
That is a great unknown. We have been trying in Nottingham, working
with the local authority, to establish a saturation zone and have
done a huge amount of work. Indeed, if you put up the hot spot
maps it is extremely impressive to see the concentration of violence
in the city centre. Again, whether we can legally establish and
sustain that zone, the jury is still out on whether or not it
is capable of robustly standing up to challenges in law. I think
there are some huge unknowns about how the regime will operate.
I think as far as police powers are concerned, the additional
powers we have are welcome; indeed, the one which was announced
two weeks ago is even more welcome. What we await to see is whether
those powers go far enough. There are powers to close premises
in 24 hours. Will that go far enough? Certainly we would say that.
We would say we do not feel that the industry particularly fears
the criminal courts, but it certainly fears for profit. What we
would like to ensure is that there are significant deterrents
in there to be able to say to companies, "If you don't act
responsibly in this town or this city then there will be significant
impact on you for your business viability". We wait to see
whether that will hold up or not. I guess the controversial issue
is the extended drinking hours, or possibly 24-hour drinking.
Again, it is hard to relate anything other than we need to see
how it works out. I speak from my own local authority areas, I
certainly think there is no appetite for 24-hour drinking. What
they do know, because they are seeing it already in the existing
licensing regime, is that many companies are pushing to extend
their hours. Again, how the regime will work, where the hours
are granted, is dependent upon the individual operated schedule
of the premises and whether people will accept (if we did stagger
opening hours), "That place can stay open longer than this
place". None of us know how that is going to work and I think
we need to watch that very closely in the coming months. In conclusion,
my perception is that I do not think Nottinghamshire is going
to be any different from anywhere else; and the police in local
authorities have put a huge amount of effort into working out
how to be compliant with the Act, and they have put the minimum
of effort and are now having to put a growing amount of effort
into actually using the Act to design their town and city centres.
What we need to ensure is that every local authority gets the
kind of hurry-up call to say, "If you can't aggressively
pull together your vision of what your town centre or city centre
is going to look like then somebody else will do it for you".
I think that is the real challenge between now and next year.
Q206 Mr Prosser: You are effectively
saying that we will have to "suck it and see". With
the knowledge we have got now would you have recommended to Government
the general thrust of the Licensing Act?
Mr Green: My personal take on
it is if what we had in the past had been so good that it was
worth defending—I would defend it—but it is not. Let
us be quite clear, when you have to have this huge book called
Patterson Licensing to try and work out one little element
of the law, it is madness quite honestly. I am not defending what
we have got now. What concerns me is the fundamental contradictions
between different interests in the government, and I think they
are not reconciled. The desire to promote prosperous town and
city centres is perfectly valid. The need to protect public order
is perfectly valid. They are not reconciled. The other one if
I may is that there is the desire to promote fair competition
between different businesses—I do not know if that has got
a place in the selling of a drug called "alcohol". There
are huge amounts of policy contradictions which have never really
been reconciled, and expecting people like me and colleagues in
local authorities to reconcile them on the ground is unfair.
Q207 Mr Prosser: On the issue of licensing
hours, some people argue that at least under the present regime
the police and authorities can predict when the problems are going
to be and can focus their attention and resources on a particular
couple of hours. What is your view on that?
Mr Green: If you look at the behaviour
of drinkers, those who are committed drinkers as it were, even
if you staggered opening hours people will move from premises
to premises and will try and stay out as long as they can. This
idea that staggering hours makes it easier to police I think has
not been proven in practice, certainly not in this country. At
the moment, as things stand, as you say we have a fairly concentrated
range of hours so I know if I focus my resources on that time
and probably an hour afterwards, by three o'clock in the provinces
I can start scaling down and get people off to bed, preparing
for the following day. The longer the hours then the greater the
risk I have to police in the course of the night. I think what
we are going to see is a pulling of resources out of day-time
policing into night-time policing to cover those risks.
Q208 Mr Prosser: Do any of the witnesses
have a view of the number of outlets, pubs and clubs which will
apply for longer hours and 24-hour drinking? Has any estimate
been made?
Mr Hutson: I do not think there
is any industry consensus. Of course, a lot of operators have
been waiting for a bit more clarity on the guidelines. From our
own point of view, we do not envisage suddenly applying for 24-hour
drinking; we do not think there is a demand for it from consumers.
Without going through every case, our own general view is that
we will apply for slightly extended hours depending on the location.
Maybe a little bit longer in a major city centre; and in a suburban
centre maybe no longer at all. I do not think there is an innate
demand from consumers to want to drink more. I think the innate
demand that is there which we have seen in the last ten or 15
years is that people do come out slightly later and do want to
extend their night a little bit longer. For the vast majority
of people that is the case, I believe, to extend their night a
little bit longer but certainly not on a 24-hour basis. There
will be demand from companies such as ours to extend hours moderately
and in proportion to what they are now in the cities in which
they trade; but suddenly going for 24 hours, I do not see it myself.
Mr Doyle: I have spoken to a wide
range of operators over the last two months, including the licensing
director of Wetherspoon and I was a little surprised that intentions
as regards operators in Westminster, which is where I happen to
work, were not necessarily that they wanted to extend their hours.
I think what they want to do most of all is have greater flexibility
in their ability to operate. Some of them are saying they have
not made their minds up yet exactly what it is that they want
to do. I suppose one of the pleasing things, which I heard from
operators including Wetherspoon, was that they want to extend
the nature of their offering in their premises if they can to
make it more varied, and that would be good, and not simply a
drinking mono-culture. There will be some nights of the week when
they will want to extend hours. I suppose it is not difficult
to assume that this may be the very nights which are difficult
at the moment—Friday and Saturday night. I think there is
a mixed message.
Q209 Mr Prosser: Under the new arrangements
and the new Act there will be a necessity for local authorities
to provide their own statement of licensing policy. How useful
and practical will they be in allowing councils to prohibit licences
in areas where they anticipate anti-social behaviour and criminal
activity?
Mr Doyle: Obviously that is welcomed.
Because the requirement on local authorities is to have a policy.
Acknowledgement that licensing is an important regulatory function
in local authority areas in controlling, particularly, the night-time
environment is good. What is of concern—and I think there
is a certain amount of wait-and see on this, as Stephen Green
has said—is that the policy does not actually take effect
until somebody objects. It is really left to local residents to
carefully scrutinise every licence application, or for responsible
authorities, such as the police, planning service or environment
health, to be properly resourced and have the expertise again
to carefully scan every licence application to see whether there
is something they think is important to object to regarding one
of the four licensing objectives. It is seen as a little curious,
I think, by licensing officers because we feel we are the very
people who have advised members on that policy and have the experience,
background and expertise to put the policy into place and make
it effective—such things as having a stress area, an area
of saturation which I notice the Cabinet Office Alcohol Harm Reduction
Strategy identified as one of the most serious problems in city
centres. If there is a policy of saturation, it will not be possible
for a local authority to bring that into effect unless or until
objection is made, and that seems curious to us.
Q210 Mr Prosser: Are you saying the system
needs to run and be experienced before you can test and enforce
the new measures?
Mr Doyle: You asked earlier, what
do we see as good and bad? I have to say, we have great concerns
about that particular provision. It is not something we see as
a plus. There are good things in the Licensing Act 2003, without
a doubt, but we have grave concerns about that.
Q211 Mr Prosser: Are you saying that
local authorities should have the powers to make a decision over
an over-saturated area?
Mr Doyle: It is the licensing
authority. If you take a local council it has a number of functions
within it, and one of those is as a licensing authority; another
one is the planning authority; and another one is environmental
health. A licensing authority will not be able to apply its policy
and make recommendations to members unless or until an objection
is received, either from somebody living near to this application
or from one of the responsible authorities. We see that as a curious
anomaly.
Q212 Mr Prosser: There is a danger of
conflict, of incompatibility between the planning issues and licensing
issues within the same authority?
Mr Doyle: In a sense the planning
issues are important but, in another way, the very steep growth
in late night drink-led entertainment which Dick Hobbs has referred
to, which has brought us to the position we are in now, has not
always involved a change of planning use. Its A3 use is food and
drink, and so restaurants have been turned into bars. D2 use is
music and dancing. They also have been turned into nightclubs
and bars. Planning is important but I do not think it is necessarily
central to the planning of the night-time environment. I think
the Licensing Act in a way acknowledges that licensing is central
to that.
Q213 Mr Prosser: Finally, do you think
it is possible for the licensing authorities within a particular
council to make their decisions in isolation to what might be
the council's objective, in that they want to stimulate and invigorate
the night-time economy and vitality of their city centre, whereas
a licensing authority will be concerned about law and order matters?
Mr Doyle: Quite the opposite.
I think licensing policies, the policies I have seen which already
exist, are seeking not just to be negative but to be positive
in encouraging and developing a more diverse offering during the
night-time economy, something which goes beyond simply stand-up
drinking. The kind of thing I mean is comedy clubs and places
where one can eat, drink and be entertained. There are encouraging
signs that the entertainment industry is responding to that.
Professor Hobbs: I think this
issue of diversity is absolutely crucial. Speaking to local authority
officers and city centre managers over the last two years they
see some of the changes in the licensing law as a possible opportunity
to introduce diversity. At the moment it is for the under 25s.
Most of the officers I speak to are middle aged, usually men,
and they are looking for somewhere to drink themselves and they
are getting rather disappointed because there is nowhere to go
and use themselves as examples. The issue of diversity is crucial.
It is going to be very difficult to introduce diversity. It is
going to be very difficult to introduce a wine bar, a real ale
bar or a comedy club once the licence is awarded and there are
going to be some real battles over that. The issue of diversity
is crucial. There is also the issue about individual premises.
With the changes in licensing law there is a great hope that individual
premises must be well run and if they are not we will close them
down. Individual licensees—which is the personal licence
awarded to those running the premises—will get their licence
taken away from them if they serve under-age drinkers or if they
run a disorderly house etc. This emphasis on individual premises
is a red herring. The problem is in public space. The problem
is the numbers who have been drinking in public space. A few years
ago we had problems when people were coming out into public space
at 11 o'clock and increasingly now it is 1.30 to 2.00, with extensions
into three or maybe four o'clock. If we go to 24 hours it is going
to get worse and worse, putting more people on the street; there
will be no transport; there will be no urinals for young men who
have been drinking gallons of beer; there will be no cabs; there
will be no buses; so basically no facilities whatsoever. The problem
we should be focussing on, I feel strongly, is on public space.
If a local authority cannot sustain services for these citizens
who happen to have been drinking and are coming out onto the street
at night, no matter what time, then this night-time economy should
not extend itself any further. The emphasis on individual licences
for individuals and for individual premises is something of a
red herring, I feel.
Q214 David Winnick: Professor Hobbs and
Mr Hutson have given us a sort of nightmare scenario which some
of us would share about 24-hour opening. What I do not quite understand
from the answer which you gave my colleague Mr Prosser is this:
you say your company is opposed, as far as I understand it, to
24-hour opening yet you want the hours extended. This session
has been dealing with the problem of excessive drinking and all
the acute difficulties which arise. Why on earth should your company
want to extend the hours, except for the obvious reason of just
more profit?
Mr Hutson: We are not opposed
to the notion of 24-hour licensing if by that what is meant is
flexibility of operating hours, because the vast majority of our
pubs close at 11 pm because we do not have any section 77 permissions
and PELs; which means because we do not play music and offer entertainment
the law of the land says we have to close at 11 pm.
Q215 David Winnick: What is wrong with
that?
Mr Hutson: There is nothing at
all wrong with that, except in today's society consumers do not
want that. I fully understand there is a lot of concentration
on Friday and Saturday nights at the moment, that people seven
days a week do not want that. Restaurants throughout the UK operate
until midnight by virtue of a slightly different licensing regime
from pubs. 25% of our sales derive from food; about 40% of our
sales derive from food and non-alcoholic drinks; yet we could
be next door to a restaurant, a Pizza Express or a Zizzi, and
we have to close an hour before them because of the current licensing
regime. In my answer I was really saying with the new licensing
regime in those circumstances we would probably say, "We'd
like to stay open as long as Pizza Express next door because probably
pound for pound we serve as much food as that Pizza Express in
our premises". I do not think companies such as ours really
want extended hours just to chase yet more profit. I think one
of the big things we are looking for is a level playing field
whereby we can satisfy the consumers and their needs and end up
making about the same profit in the longer term.
Q216 David Winnick: Satisfying the consumer
more than profits. Professor Hobbs—you have already given
us a pretty good indication about your views on 24-hour opening—do
you think there is any justification for extending the hours in
which public houses are open?
Professor Hobbs: If we accept
that our city centres are going to be market-led then, yes, 24-hour
drinking is going to be part of it. It is a part of that market
economy, and also 24-hour shopping etc, etc. There are no facilities
at night. We shut down. We still operate in the 19th century in
terms of the way we operate. Certainly in terms of the way the
night-time economy has developed, generally speaking most police
forces have the same capacity (despite taking the most recent
operation as something of a blip) to deal with problems at night
which they had 15 or 20 years ago. What this means is that they
are putting up a shift which may consist of 15 police officers
to deal with 45,000, 50,000 maybe 75,000 drinkers. At the moment
if you go into a police station at four or five in the evening
you will find an inspector desperately trying to put together
a shift of police officers. He will bring in special constables;
he will bring in a coroner's officer; he will bring in people
with overtime; he will bring in armed response units maybe from
other areas. All of this will be an incredible scramble to put
these numbers together. That is dealing with the licensing laws
as they are at the moment. That is dealing with the numbers on
the street as they are at the moment. You expand this further—will
there be any more police officers? No, there will not be. Will
there be any more resources put into A&E departments? If anyone
wants to know about the real effects they should visit an A&E
department at midnight on a Friday night. Will there be any more
transport? No. Cabs? No. Nothing will happen other than more people
are going to drink more alcohol. I see no justification if young
people are being put at risk and if the city centres are being
put at risk.
Q217 Mr Clappison: I think you have been
clear to us in what you have been saying: you feel that planning
has a role to play; the provision of facilities is very important;
the provision of facilities such as late night transport to get
people home, rather than have them hanging around; public toilets,
for example, so people who have drunk a very large quantity of
drink have somewhere to go to the toilet rather than urinating
in doorways. I think it follows from what you are saying that
so far you think that these are things which are unsatisfactory
in many town centres?
Professor Hobbs: Yes.
Q218 Mr Clappison: How big a difference
do you think they could make if they were properly provided?
Professor Hobbs: Transport is
the big one to get people out of the city centre. We are very
good at getting people in at seven o'clock in the evening but
usually the last bus leaves about quarter past 11 just when people
are moving on to the club or to late night licensed premises.
Transport is important. Some of the results of Manchester getting
the Commonwealth Games and an emphasis being put upon transport
at night, both before and after the Commonwealth Games, has had
an impact on the situation in Manchester. I think that is an example
of good practice. That was carried out basically because a dedicated
team of officers was tasked with improving the situation in the
city centre beyond the immediate Fire Brigade, policing of incidents,
and they liaised with transport authorities etc and they have
had some success, so I think that transport is absolutely top
of the list.
Q219 Mr Clappison: And town centre managers,
how useful do you think they are?
Professor Hobbs: That is mixed.
Many of the town centre managers that we have spoken to during
our research since 1998 have been basically involved in part of
city centre spin, in boosterism. They are very concerned with
boosting their particular city centre. I think, however, that
dedicated professionals, whether it is city centre managers or
dedicated police officers who are involved in the night time economy,
whose concern is dealing with the night time economy rather than
working a shift system where they are dealing with football hooligans
on a Saturday afternoon and on a Saturday night they are dealing
with night time economy, I think is problematic. We do not have
enough knowledge of this new economy and we do not have enough
dedicated professionals working within it.
1 Note by Witness: During 2004 the predominant
group for victims of City Centre violence in Nottingham remained
males, with 69% of victims recorded as male and 17% female, the
remaining number not having a recorded classification for gender. Back
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