Examination of Witnesses (Questions 71-79)
14 MARCH 2005
PHIL HOPE,
RT HON
MR RICHARD
CABORN AND
MS HAZEL
BLEARS
Q71 Chairman: Ministers, can I welcome
you collectively to this evidence session of our follow-up inquiry
into the evening economy and the role of drinking in urban regeneration.
As is customary, I could extend the opportunity to you to say
a few words before you begin questioning or we could go straight
to questions.
Phil Hope: If I may open on behalf
of the Government, we very much welcome the Committee's continued
interest in this whole area of the evening economy. It is very
much a part of ODPM's whole development of the urban renaissance
and developing sustainable communities. The original inquiry by
the Committee recognised the challenge of reconciling both the
success of having thriving, vibrant evening economies in town
centres with some of the challenges that it presents at the same
time. I think there is now a greater awareness of some of the
issues that we are now facing. It is truly a cross-government
issue. We have a cross-government working group dealing with the
issues of the cleaner, safer, greener agenda as well as the Alcohol
Harm Reduction working party, which is cross-government as well.
So we are pleased to see all departments getting engaged. That
is helping us to share information and to work out what is going
on on the ground that is successful, and our aim is to join things
up on the ground as well. We do recognise there is perhaps a lack
of information about what is best practice, because there is a
lot going on out there that we are very pleased about but we need
to pull that together. Certainly, one of the key roles we see
ourselves playing in government is to provide the necessary guidance
for practitioners, drawing upon their expertise in different areas
and pulling it together so that everyone can learn from that.
The evening economy of course covers so much different territory.
There are three of us here but there are other government departments
with an interest in this as well. It is very important we pull
it all together. It is very much work in progress. We are working
closely together across it so that we can maximise the benefits
and minimise the challenges that this whole agenda gives us.
Chairman: Thank you very much for that.
Q72 Mr O'Brien: We have received reports
that some of our town and city centres are no-go areas for families
or certain sections of society. Do you think that the question
of the late-night or evening economy has got out of hand?
Phil Hope: No, but I do think
in certain areas where the existing powers, the resources that
are available have been well marshalled. I am thinking of places
like Manchester. Their levels of crime are actually low and the
number of incidents that might put people off going into the town
centre is very low. But there are other areas that have not achieved
those kinds of outcomes, so in some areas, you are right to suggest,
Mr O'Brien, that there is activity going on in the evening in
some of our town centres that does put off some parts of the community.
It is very important that we look at all the resources and all
the powers that local authorities and others have available to
them to try to create an evening economy that is genuinely inclusive,
that encourages everyone to enjoy the benefits that that evening
economy can bring.
Q73 Mr O'Brien: Can I ask your colleagues
about this?
Ms Blears: When we did the Alcohol
Harm Reduction Strategy last year, we estimated that it cost us
about £7.3 billion in terms of tackling the crime and disorder
effects of the misuse of alcohol, so it is clearly a significant
problem for us. I think it is fair to say that on a Friday and
Saturday night in some town centres this is a real problem, and
that is one of the reasons why we have had the big enforcement
campaigns this year, both over eight weeks in the summer and again
over Christmas, where the police in particular, but working with
local authorities and local businesses, have been out there really
sending a message that they are going to use the whole range of
powers, from fixed penalty notices, dispersal orders, everything
that they can possibly do, to try and make sure that there is
order on the streets. I do not think we are in the position of
no-go areas. What we have to have is enforcement, and then the
longer term planning issues and sustainability of the town centre.
I feel particularly very strongly about trying to get a more varied
offer in our town centres. At the moment virtually all the clubs
are aimed at 18-25 year olds, and the more we can do in planning
terms to bring in a range of different entertainment options for
people, that is how we can make it sustainable.
Q74 Mr O'Brien: Do you think we have
gone too far in allowing late-night licensing?
Ms Blears: No. I think we need
to separate out the flexible licensing hours being brought in
in the new Licensing Act from the undoubted problem we do have
with a small minority of people who are simply going out to get
as drunk as they possibly can and then fuelling quite a lot of
the disorder and violence that goes on out there. But I do not
think that having flexible licensing hours as proposed in the
Licensing Act will necessarily cause a worse problem, but what
we have said is that we want to look at that in a year's time,
keep it under review, monitor it very carefully, and if there
are still significant problems, we have agreed collectively that
we will return to that licensing legislation to see if we need
to take any further steps.
Q75 Mr O'Brien: Our previous report pointed
out that there needs to be some diversity in the town centres
if we are going to keep the economy for those town centres viable,
but today we have been questioning witnesses and we have seen
no evidence of diversity. What can the Government do about it?
Mr Caborn: One of the things we
are trying to do with the Licensing Act 2003, which has not, I
think, been given publicity for the right reasons that it should
have been, but we are bringing six licensing regimes into one,
and obviously, one of those is to make sure also that we have
flexible opening hours. The small experiment we have run with
flexible opening hours, contrary to the popular belief that you
see in the press about 24-hour opening, from 1999 over New Year,
particularly for the millennium year, we allowed 36 hours of flexible
opening, and in that millennium year crime went down by 6% in
the capital. That does not mean that people opened for 36 hours,
but they had flexibility within the 36 hours. Subsequently we
have had that at every New Year as well. So where we have had
flexibility, we think it has worked. To a large extent, the police
were asking us to remove the flash points of 11 o'clock and 2
o'clock, and it was smoothing that out that really was one of
the reasons we started looking at the modernisation of licensing
and, as I say, bringing six regimes into one, we believe, will
give that flexibility. For example, on music, which is part of
that licensing, when anybody is applying for a new licence from
7 February, they can have all those things in the licence, and
that will give them the ability to be able to provide for the
diversification that you are looking at. We accept there has been
a problem. The status quo is not an option. What we are bringing
in in the 2003 Act is as a result of wide consultation with the
industry, and I am bound to say, Mr O'Brien, that there is a shared
problem, but I think now the industry, local authorities and government
are trying to find shared solutions to that. There is a real partnership
to bring our city centres and our town centres back into an atmosphere
where people can go out and really enjoy themselves.
Phil Hope: Our planning policy,
particularly PPS6—which we hope to be publishing very soon—specifically
is about the management and the planning of the town centre to
ensure there is that diversity of leisure use, cultural use, tourism
and so on. That guidance, along with powers and the other planning
use class orders, gives an opportunity for local authorities to
look at the town centre as a whole in planning terms to ensure
that there is a diversity of use.
Q76 Mr O'Brien: What we were looking
for was some diversity without alcohol being the base of it, whereby
we could have late-night shopping, where families could go, and
we do not base the regeneration on alcohol all the time. Has any
thought been given to that?
Phil Hope: Indeed. That is exactly
what the planning guidance does seek to do, to see how local authorities
can look at their town centres not just in the evening but during
the daytime as well, and how there is a transition period, to
manage that town centre better in terms of the different uses
that it might be put to and how you might have different aspects
of town centre management at different times of the day in order
that different uses can be put to it, including, as you said,
late-night shopping. Our policy statement will be published very
shortly, and I hope that will deal with some of those concerns
that I know some local authorities have.
Q77 Sir Paul Beresford: You mentioned
the small minority that cause all the trouble, and we have heard
the phrase "binge drinking". Many people feel binge
drinking is a very British thing that you do not find on the Continent
unless the Brits are there doing it. Do you feel that is correct,
and if so, what sort of research is being done to try to get into
the background of it?
Ms Blears: I think that is a bit
of an over-simplification. It tends to be presented that we have
a kind of Scandinavian approach to drinking, which is to go out
and drink as much as you can, actually to drink to get drunk,
whereas people in Latin, Mediterranean countries go out and have
a drink with something to eat in a much more measured fashion.
There is some truth in that, but interestingly, in recent times,
particularly around major cities, even the Mediterranean countries
are beginning to experience some of the problems that we have
with excessive binge drinking, particularly amongst young people.
So I think there is some truth in that characterisation of our
drinking habits, but I do not think it is necessarily quite as
simple as it is sometimes presented. Quite a lot of that is about
education and making sure that people have information about what
they are drinking and what that is doing to them. There are some
wider cultural issues as well as our different styles of drinking
in this country.
Q78 Andrew Bennett: Hazel, 12 months
ago you said you would not be prepared to go out into Manchester
on a Saturday night. I think it was a New Statesman article. Are
you happy now to go out in Manchester on a Saturday night? You
are no kill-joy; I would have thought you would have been out
there.
Ms Blears: Absolutely not. I think
what I said was that this issue came home to me when I was planning
a Saturday evening out, and I started looking at going to a matinee
performance at the pictures, and I thought, "Goodness, I'm
not that old to have to go to a matinee performance." But
I realised that people like myself were increasingly starting
to do that, to go to the pictures and to the theatre in the afternoon,
have something to eat, and then they could be home before half
past eight, nine o'clock, before the clubbers started to come
out. I did think that was a matter of concern, because everybody,
no matter what their age or background, should be able to go out
and use their town centres in the evening. Since that time, I
have been out with the police at 3 am in Manchester, and I have
also been out in other places, and I have seen some good things
in terms of the police genuinely managing a boisterous but friendly
atmosphere in the city centre, but I have also seen some things
that cause me concern in some premises, where they were not particularly
well managed and could have led to flash points and violence.
So I think, particularly in Manchester, they have got a very good
system of joining up the police, the licensing authority, the
transport system, the cleansing system, but even in that extremely
well managed situation, there are still possible flash points
which did cause people concern. But overall, in terms of Manchester,
I think it I pretty well managed.
Q79 Andrew Bennett: Are there not really
flash points between the three departments? It is all right talking
about partnership but basically, there is a conflict, is there
not, between a laissez-faire, let people enjoy themselves attitude
that comes from the Department for Fun and the need to have regulation
as far as planning is concerned and law enforcement?
Ms Blears: I think that is increasingly
beginning to be much more integrated between all of us, and I
think there is an increasing recognition from all of us that unless
we all do our best in terms of what we are trying to do, whether
it is regulation, enforcement, planning, then we will not actually
achieve the kind of city centres and town centres that we all
want to see in place. If you look at some of the schemes now,
where local authorities, particularly in the licensing departments,
are working hand in hand with the police, whereby they go out
with their video cameras, they are inspecting and enforcing the
premises which are the greatest risk, and then you have the transport
people through the taxi system, working with the police, working
with the council, to make sure youngsters get either a safe all-night
bus home or get a safe taxi home, you are seeing much more management
of the town centre in an integrated fashion than I think you have
ever seen before.
Mr Caborn: I think it would be
wrong to say that, Mr Bennett. The experience of local authorities,
of business, of the police is that they have all said the status
quo is not an option. What we have done with the Licensing Act
2003, as I said, is to bring six regimes into one, but with one
authority now controlling that—not magistrates' courts,
but the local authority. We are asking the local authority, with
other parts of the community, to start looking much more proactively
rather than reactively at developing their economy, the night-time
economy and the general economy. It is also true to say that businesses
themselves, particularly with the trade, know now that it is not
good business for the drinking houses to cater for a minority
of people, because there are a lot of people—not just like
Hazel and our age, but a younger age—who are saying "No,
we are not going to go into city centres any more. Why should
we go in there for agro on a Saturday night? It is crazy. We will
go somewhere else." So we have seen over a period of time
that the people who frequent them are getting less and less, and
therefore it is not in the best interests of business, and it
is definitely not in the best interests of the police. So as I
say, it is a shared problem now, and we are finding shared solutions
to that, and I think what we are seeing in the 2003 Act is the
type of licensing which is proportionate now to the offence being
committed and putting the onus on the licensee in a way that has
not been the case before. The other area where there has been
a major problem, but we are really going to crack down on, is
under-age drinking. We have found that out by some of the surveys
and spot studies that we have done. It is a problem, and that
needs addressing very seriously.
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