Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-281)
21 DECEMBER 2004
MR PHILIP
DOYLE, MR
STEPHEN GREEN,
PROFESSOR DICK
HOBBS, MR
JOHN HUTSON
AND MS
CLARE EAMES
Q280 Mrs Dean: If I can just ask the
question I intended to ask before, which is earlier we discussed
charging of the industry directly for policing and infrastructure.
Bearing in mind that very often it is a number of irresponsible
landlords who can cause the problem, is there a way of targeting
that cost on to those rather than the part of the industry that
behaves itself?
Mr Green: If I can just slightly
set some context to that, if I may. What we have found is that
ten of our premises out of 350 in Nottingham City account for
about 40% of all incidents in the course of a year. They are our
top ten list, so we can clearly identify them. I think the only
difficulty that we need to be aware of is, the first question
we need to ask is should they have a licence in the first place
rather than should they pay more. On the basis of the figures
you can see where the problems are very clearly but the difficulty,
and it goes back to the fundamental point Professor Hobbs made
right at the beginning, is that not every incident which can or
should be linked to a particular establishment takes place in
that establishment. There are some fundamental challenges. I described
the Marketplace in Nottingham where there must be ten or 12 licensed
premises within chucking out distance of that Marketplace and
attributing responsibility to one becomes extremely difficult
if the problem takes place in the Market Square rather than in
the premises itself. Equally, I think we would all agree as right
thinking citizens that through the civic leadership of the local
authority and the support of the police we need the licensing
industry in a city to act as a community in their own right. There
needs to be a sense of mutuality of interest there, not just a
targeting of the so-called worse premises. I have not thought
it through but I think there would be as many perverse incentives
in saying just target the people who cause problems as there would
be helpful incentives, so I think we need to think that through
very carefully. As I say, the stumbling block would be how do
you attribute what happens in the street to a particular establishment
when actually all establishments in totality create the threat
and risk of those problems?
Chairman: Mr Prosser has the last question.
Q281 Mr Prosser: On this issue of selling
drinks to underage people, to what extent has schemes like Kent's
voluntary identity card system been of value? Would you welcome
the introduction of compulsory identity cards?
Mr Green: I am grateful for that
question. I am not particularly familiar with the Kent scheme
but I think the difficulty is that there is a plethora of identity
schemes in existence. Taking aside the national debate, having
a single national proof of age scheme would be helpful to us all,
because I think everybody in the industry is working to one scheme
and we are just dealing with one scheme, so it is much easier
to enforce. Whether that is translatable into a national ID card,
I am happy to let people of your wisdom decide that. I think a
single proof of age scheme, on a voluntary basis even, would be
better than what we have got now.
Chairman: On that topical note—
David Winnick: But rather controversial
note.
Chairman: Topical in all ways in this
festive season. Can I thank all of our witnesses for a very, very
helpful session and a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year to
all of you and to all of our viewers on the Internet. Thank you
very much indeed.
| 
