Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
14 MARCH 2005
PHIL HOPE,
RT HON
MR RICHARD
CABORN AND
MS HAZEL
BLEARS
Q80 Andrew Bennett: Everyone accepts
it is a problem. I do not think you have actually come up with
a solution.
Mr Caborn: We do not go operational
until November this year. This has been a big problem with the
Licensing Act. The first allotted day was 7 February this year.
The new licensing does not come in until after November of this
year, and I think in two years' time we will reflect on it and
say, "What was all the fuss about?"
Phil Hope: The core question was
whether the Government has got itself together, the different
departments working more closely together in a more integrated
way. I think it is arguable that in the past that might not have
been the case but we have now created the cleaner, safer, greener
programme that does bring together the work streams of nine departments,
working in an inter-ministerial group, chaired by the Office of
the Deputy Prime Minister, that looks at all these issues in a
much more integrated way than it ever did before, and indeed is
now sponsoring and has helped to co-author the "How to manage
town centres" guide that we are launching tomorrow in Manchester,
which does exactly that, which pulls together all the different
strands from all the different departments and how they can be
put together in a coherent, comprehensive way at a local level
to reflect the integration we are trying to establish at a national
level.
Q81 Andrew Bennett: When you are talking
about actually giving local authorities more power, which is what
your department is talking about, and then DCLS comes along and
says "Licensing Act, national regulations, this is what we
are going to do," would it not be much more sensible to make
sure that in that Act, the regulations left the local authority
with a great deal of discretion so that those places that do have
a town centre late-night problem could have different regulations
in places to places perhaps only a few miles away where different
circumstances apply?
Phil Hope: Richard might want
to say more about the detail. The purpose of the Licensing Act
is to transfer responsibility for licensing to local authorities.
Q82 Andrew Bennett: It transfers responsibility
but not power. That is the problem.
Phil Hope: The local authorities
have responsibility for connecting up not only their licensing
powers but their planning powers and other powers to ensure that
there is an integration at a local level when they are choosing
what flexible licences to award.
Q83 Andrew Bennett: They take the blame
but they do not have the responsibility to actually choose how
they apply the regulations to their area.
Mr Caborn: That is not the interpretation
of the Act, Mr Bennett, if I may say so.
Q84 Andrew Bennett: So convince me.
Mr Caborn: I do not think I will
ever do that, Mr Bennett. Many people far better than I am have
tried to do that. I will explain. As I said, the Act is very proportionate.
For example, we want a very light touch on probably 95% of the
licensed houses in this country. Why? Because they get on with
the business and they do it in a very responsible way, and therefore
there is no need to have a heavy regime. However, there are those
that act irresponsibly sometimes, and that is where we will come
down quite heavily, and for the first time in this Act the local
people as well as local business can have a say in the licensing
to the local authority, and it is proportionate. If people start
acting out of line, they can move in and immediately remove the
licence for 24 hours, and if they then want to put a condition
on the licence, for example, they want them to shut down every
Friday night for the next four weeks, or every weekend for the
next eight weeks, they can do that in a proportionate way. You
and I, Mr Bennett, understand that if you start putting licensed
premises down for, let us say, four Friday nights or four weekends,
that will hit their bottom line, and that is one thing they actually
do understand far better than giving them a fine. They do understand
when their bottom line is being hit, and therefore what we are
putting into this Act is the authority of the local authorities
and the weapons they use proportionately to make sure that those
licensing conditions are adhered to, and we intend to do that.
Q85 Andrew Bennett: Yes. The question
I asked you was why there should not be more variation or possible
variation between, say, Manchester and Salford in the application
of the Act.
Mr Caborn: It will be up to the
local authorities. They will apply the Act as they want to.
Q86 Sir Paul Beresford: We have just
had three different local authorities in—Westminster, Bolton
and Cheltenham. They are all totally different. They face a different
night economy, but they are under the same type of regulation.
What they are asking you to do is to look at the regulation again
and free it a little so they can adapt to their own specific problems.
Mr Caborn: I do not know where
the interpretation of that comes out. There is flexibility in
the Act that you have never had before.
Q87 Sir Paul Beresford: It is not the
Act; it is the regulations.
Mr Caborn: The regulations that
go with that are to interpret the Act, and I am saying that is
very flexible on the one hand for them to operate, and on the
other, it gives people who never had a say in licensing the ability
to influence that, particularly local residents, in a way that
they have never had before.
Q88 Andrew Bennett: Can you just explain
to me how local residents actually object? At the moment they
can go to the magistrates' court.
Mr Caborn: They go to the local
authority.
Q89 Andrew Bennett: How are they going
to be able to object in the future?
Mr Caborn: To the local authority.
Q90 Andrew Bennett: What do they do?
They say they object to the local authority? Do they have to produce
evidence?
Mr Caborn: They have to produce
evidence. They can do it through the local council, and if the
licensee is seen to be breaking the conditions of that licence,
through noise or all sorts of reasons, that will . . .
Q91 Andrew Bennett: How do they object
to the actual licence being granted?
Mr Caborn: To the local authority.
Q92 Andrew Bennett: So they say that,
and then they have to produce evidence, have they not?
Mr Caborn: They have to produce
some evidence. It would be wrong if they did not have to produce
evidence, would it not?
Q93 Andrew Bennett: It is quite difficult
for someone who lives next to one of those premises that is being
badly run to have to put their head above the parapet, is it not?
Mr Caborn: I do not know how else
you do that, Mr Bennett, but I can assure you that the rights
of local residents now we think will be welcomed. You and I know,
as elected representatives, it is quite often that you will get
a petition coming in very quickly indeed if there is a noise problem
around a particular club or pub. I have had that in my own constituency,
when they come into my constituency office saying, "We want
something to be done about that." Unfortunately, they could
not do it before; they can now actually go directly to their local
authority, and that will be taken into consideration for the conditions
of the licence.
Q94 Chairman: Can I just ask you to address
this point that is often made about the burden of proof? I will
clearly state here that I had a very good evening in Manchester
on Saturday night, with many people, celebrating a certain 4-0
result from earlier in the day. I saw no evidence whatsoever of
disorderly behaviour, but what I did see was large groups of people
migrating from one licensed premises to another. The question
I would like to ask on this same point really is how easy is it
going to be, do you think, for the local authority to pinpoint
the premises where the irresponsible licensee is selling alcohol
to people who are well and truly way over the limit?
Mr Caborn: It is illegal to sell
alcohol to anybody who is drunk. It is illegal to sell alcohol
to an under-age person. That will need policing, and that is again
up to the enforcement authorities.
Q95 Chairman: But if I am the aggrieved
neighbour, how will I know which bar has been responsible for
serving that person if they have perhaps gone, as many Friday
and Saturday night drinkers do, to half a dozen different establishments
and maybe across, in the case of Manchester, Salford, Trafford
and Manchester, three different local authority areas?
Ms Blears: I think one of the
important things to be clear about is that there are now new powers,
for example, using fixed penalty notices for some of these people
who are drunk; bar staff can now be issued with fixed penalty
notices, and some of our police forces have taken that up
very enthusiastically. In one place in Dorset they have really
used those notices, and it is starting to change the behaviour
of bar staff. If the bar staff think they are going to personally
have to pay £80, it can make a significant difference. You
could have some evidence of the places that have had the fixed
penalty notices used, so they have a history of serving either
to under-age youngsters or to people who are already drunk. So
you could have some evidence from the police about how many times
they have been called to those premises, what kind of incidents
they have dealt with, what kind of history they have had over
a period of three or six months. That should help the local authority
get a clearer picture about which premises are well managed and
which premises are poorly managed, and most local authorities
now in my experience have these joint teams—I am thinking
about Swansea, Cardiff, Leicester, York—across the country
now where they will almost highlight their top 10 risk premises,
and they will concentrate their enforcement activities on the
ones that are the most high-risk, because for the majority they
are not a problem, but where you do have the problems, that is
where you need to target your activity. Hopefully, the local authority
will then know from the police about the places which have caused
the most problems.
Mr Caborn: For the first time
we are funding through the licence fee the enforcement of those
licences as well. That is very important as far as the local authority
is concerned. It is obviously in the interest of local authorities
as far as they can to have an orderly city centre, and we are
giving them the local powers and the resource to achieve that
objective.
Q96 Chris Mole: Mr Caborn, the Scottish
Parliament has before it a Licensing Bill that will allow Licensing
Boards to extend their powers to refuse a new licence on the grounds
of over-provision. Would you consider amending the 2003 Licensing
Act to allow that?
Mr Caborn: We have said it will
be on a case by case basis. The problem with that is that if you
say there will be no more licences because of saturation, you
may stop a restaurant from getting a liquor licence, which would
not be the object of the exercise. One has to be careful when
doing that. We have some sympathy with that, but it has to be
carried out in a way that is proportionate and fair and achieves
the objectives of what Scotland is trying to do. We say yes, you
can on a case by case basis say you could have a refusal.
Q97 Chris Mole: But that case by case
basis to the local authority can be challenged in the courts afterwards.
Is that not going to put a lot off actually trying to take some
action?
Mr Caborn: We will have to test
that, will we not, in court? As I say, I think there is a different
attitude emerging to the problems of abuse of drinking. The attitude
we have always had in this country is "Well, he did it because
he was drunk; he didn't know quite what he was doing." That
is changing now, and people are going to say "No, if he goes
out and gets drunk, he is as responsible for his actions as when
sober." That is true in terms of some of the other approaches
that we have of people being responsible for licensing, and indeed
their own behaviour, when they go out and drink in the city centre
as well.
Q98 Chris Mole: Mr Hope, when the Committee
did its report in 2003 we talked about dispersing premises. Is
that something that the Government is likely to take account of
as an example of best practice in managing the night-time economy
when the final revision of PPS6 comes out?
Phil Hope: Unfortunately, we are
very shortly to produce the final version of PPS6, so I am unable
to give you the answer here today, Mr Mole. However, we have had
the response to the consultation on that very point, and when
the version is published very shortly, I am confident you will
see that we have sought to listen to those views very carefully.
Q99 Chris Mole: "Very shortly"
is March perhaps?
Phil Hope: It is very shortly.
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