Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-22)
MR STEPHEN
ALAMBRITIS AND
MR NICK
BISH
31 OCTOBER 2005
Q20 Mr Olner: Do you have a view
as to why Members of Parliament are specifically banned by local
authorities from taking part and making representations or taking
part in any mediation?
Mr Bish: I have no a view on that
and I think that we have been down the ward councillor route and
the ward councillors, who may find themselves sitting on a committee
are properly, in my view, disbarred from that committee because
of their possible partiality, but they should absolutely be entitled
to be an advocate for their own wards and I cannot see that a
Member of Parliament should not be, but perhaps I am straying.
Mr Olner: It would be nice to get it
on the record.
Q21 Anne Main: You mentioned vicinity.
Do you have any concerns that vicinity is so loosely defined and
some areas do not exercise vicinity?
Mr Bish: I believe that vicinity
will solve itself in due course. It is very bad to define vicinity
because there will always be exceptions. Hard cases make bad law,
or whatever the expression is.
Q22 Chair: The Government's view
is that the system of fees needs to be self-financing, that is
it should be neutral as far as local authorities are concerned.
I know that businesses are complaining that the fees are too high:
local authorities are complaining that their funding is too low.
Do you have any comment on the notion of it being self-financing?
Mr Alambritis: We think it should
be self-financing, but within that, there could be a smarter approach.
In Vermont again, for example, they have one class, two classes,
three classes whether it is on premises, off premises, whether
it is just beer and wine or liquors and so on. They have been
a bit smarter with the type of licence and I can certainly send
a note to the Committee about the Vermont approach. The other
point I want to make is that a lot of small businesses are run
from home now and they have been reluctant to advertise the fact
that there may be some liquor or that they are in that type of
business. We need to be aware of that. It has also been difficult
for small businesses to have to provide forms to scale. The Minister
said that there would be a £2 billion saving, but we are
not sure to whom at this moment. Local authorities are busy recruiting
licensing officers and small businesses are busy paying a bit
more for their licence fees, so we do not know where the savings
have gone.
Mr Bish: I should briefly like
to add to that. The local authorities are obviously responsible
for their new responsibilities, are taking them seriously, but
the more work that they take to themselves, the more it will cost
and that has to go into the equation. We have to look at what
was possible 12 months ago and what it will cost in 12 months'
time. It is the same pubs and the same people and the same circumstances,
so it should not cost more, but I fear it might and that is the
concern that we have about extra costs.
Chair: Thank you both very much. I am
sorry it has been rushed, but we do have your written evidence
which of course fleshes out a lot of the points that you have
made. Thank you very much indeed.
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