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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 606-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: HOUSING, PLANNING, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS COMMITTEE
Monday 31 October 2005 MR S ALAMBRITIS and MR N BISH COUNCILLOR A LEWIS, MR A FISHER and MR T KELLY COUNCILLOR C LAMBERT, MR P CROWLEY, MR P KOLVIN and MR J LIEB JAMES PURNELL MP, MR P WOOLAS MP and MR S ROBERTS Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-122
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Office of Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee on Monday 31 October 2005 Members present Dr Phyllis Starkey, in the Chair Sir Paul Beresford Mr Clive Betts Martin Horwood Mr Mark Lancaster Anne Main Mr Bill Olner Dr John Pugh Alison Seabeck ________________ Memoranda submitted by Federation of Small Businesses and Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Stephen Alambritis, Head of Parliamentary Affairs Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Mr Nick Bish, Chief Executive, Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR), examined. Q1 Chair: I should like to start the first session of questions. May I first of all thank you for the written evidence that you have submitted which has been available to members so we do not need to repeat anything that is in the written evidence? May I also just ask each of you to introduce yourself and say who you are? Mr Bish: Good afternoon, my name is Nick Bish; I am Chief Executive of ALMR, which is the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, a trade association of pub companies. Mr Alambritis: Hello everyone, I am Stephen Alambritis and I am the Head of Parliamentary Affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses. Q2 Chair: Thank you very much. May I start then? The object of this hearing is to look at the re-licensing process and the way it was handled, and I think it is obvious that there are many ways in which it could have been handled better. I should like to ask each of you first whether the biggest problem was the process itself or the way in which it was implemented. Mr Bish: I am happy to go into that. Obviously the two are different sides of the same coin. With hindsight, the way it was implemented should have been considered more carefully in the sense of workload and the complexity and costs of the outcome. With hindsight, a fabulous gift, it would have been much, much better to have converted the whole of licensing from a cumbersome system that it was hitherto into the local authority sphere and then, and only then, looked at the flexibility that was implied in the 2000 White Paper for the variations and the new flexibility and the new attractiveness of the scheme. So one step should have followed the other, as opposed to trying to do both at the same time. Mr Alambritis: Our preferred option was to introduce the new licence system as and when licences expired, especially for small businesses. We feel that in the implementation, there has been a lot of good will, good intent on the part of local authorities. A lot of local authorities put in place training and seminars and went out to visit the small businesses and started their information very, very early. What was of concern to us, in terms of the process, was the 21-page form. As I understand it, in fact the vast majority of them needed only to fill in seven pages of that 21-page form. If the ODPM had copied the way in which the self-assessment form goes out to businesses, which is that they are asked to apply for the form relevant to them, and the businesses had had the opportunity to tick a box somewhere so that they just received the seven pages, I think that would have been a good step forward. Q3 Chair: From the evidence that was given to us, it is clear that some sectors of the trade actually did manage to deal with the process reasonably well. We were told that the pub sector was fully prepared. I notice that we had evidence from the Cinema Exhibitors' Association and they seem to feel that the process had gone very well. Why do you think that some parts of small business coped and some did not? Mr Bish: I can tell the Committee what was good: the communication channels in the licensed retail sector were. The communication channels are very good through the quite effective trade associations, the British Institute of Innkeeping, which reaches individual operators and the companies themselves. The structure of the industry is such that there is a channel in the passage of communication which makes this sort of thing relatively easy to manage. It is also hugely important for landlords and parent companies at every level to get it right and many of them took onto themselves the burden of the transition and the compliance and the investment in lawyer's time; so it was regarded as an investment, it came out as a cost and that is how it worked. You pay for what you get. Mr Alambritis: For our members, the SMEs, the micro businesses, where they were translated as pubs or as groups, then obviously it was difficult for them, for the one-person operation. I am talking about the florist who is sending 50 bottles of champagne throughout the year having to register; I am talking about the bed and breakfast in Blackpool which sells a few can of lager on the bar. They were assumed to be major licensing operations and used to the system, so the new system of re-licensing, the 21-page application, the £35 they were used to going up to £180, was difficult for them. Q4 Sir Paul Beresford: You are talking about micro businesses. In my constituency I have 32 villages, many of them have village shops, the village shops sell a few beers, a couple of bottles of wine et cetera. Could there not have been a de minimis level below which they would not even have to apply? Mr Bish: Yes, we felt that looking at the business rate system was a good way forward in terms of the banding, but in fact the Government also put in place small business rate relief for very small businesses, so if that had also kicked in for the purposes of the fee system, the fees for the smallest of businesses could perhaps have been halved. In fact in Mole Valley itself, there was 90 per cent compliance amongst the small business community well before 6 August and that was down to a proactive approach from the local authority. Where there has been a proactive approach, it has worked. Q5 Alison Seabeck: Obviously the fees attached to the licensing process have changed, increasing for some, decreasing for others. Are you picking up any evidence already that some businesses are actually ceasing to trade as a result of the impact of these fees on them? Mr Bish: I have to remind the Committee that I represent companies and individual operators may have approached this differently. The research that we did into the experience of my members showed that it cost about £1,500 to go from then to now through the transition process, which may or may not have included taking legal advice, but probably did. That was about the level and I think that there will be some who have found that a huge burden, although I expect my colleague can answer better for micro businesses. Mr Alambritis: We have had some cases where the entrepreneur has said that this is it, it is too costly, it is not worth selling alcohol: if it is a florist or some other kind business. We have also had the impact on economic activity where I understand you have to vary the licence if you want to go on until 11.30pm, but if you stop at 11pm, you do not have to undertake the new licence regime or the variation and the extra cost, so a number of members have said they are sticking to shorter hours. There is tough competition out there with the big supermarkets opening 24 hours a day, so we think that is a retrograde step in terms of entrepreneurs saying they will stick with 11pm and not 11.30pm; I think that is the kind of timing that is of concern to them. A number of them have said they will not extend their economic activity and they will stay as they are because they can make some savings. Q6 Alison Seabeck: In a sense you are saying it was a restriction on growth for some of these organisations, but marginal, therefore rather than encouraging small businesses to grow, it will have a dampening effect. Mr Alambritis: Yes, for the small micro businesses. Q7 Alison Seabeck: Do you think a system of variable fees would have been helpful, or do you think it actually might have complicated what was already a complicated process? Mr Alambritis: We think one of the better principles of good regulation is proportionality and if the fee system had taken into account the florist, the bed and breakfast, those who are not pubs, not multiples but have within their trade an element of licensing, if the system had recognised that, it would have met the proportionality arguments that we put in place. Q8 Dr Pugh: We have heard about the 21-page form, but any form comes with a set of guidance notes and further guidance still, probably. It is alleged that official guidance has been confusing and in some cases contradictory. Have you found it to be so and what specific problems have been created for your members by it? Mr Alambritis: We found the local authorities up and down the country have been very good and have been very helpful in terms of the form itself. We have found that LACORS, the regulatory authority, and their phone line have been immensely helpful. The problem has been with those entrepreneurs who worry themselves sick when they see a huge form, worry about whether they will get it right and leave things to the last minute. In Vermont in America, it is compulsory there for a seminar to be undertaken by the state on every licence application; they are invited to a seminar, very local seminars, about the whole system. Now I know that throughout the UK, a number of local authorities have held seminars and training events. A good local authority has been Lewes, where the senior licensing officer visited every business. Now it could be that they are small enough for him to do that but that has been very helpful. The form has been worrying; the guidance notes have been worrying for many small businesses. Q9 Dr Pugh: Mr Bish speaks for bigger enterprises. Have they found it problematic? Mr Bish: Yes. Q10 Dr Pugh: Why particularly? Mr Bish: The problem was that some of the guidance did not necessarily relate to the Act. In the Act, for example, there is no mention of stress zones or zoning of any sort, whereas the guidance permits that matter to be addressed; therefore there was a conflict between the two. The guidance was not helpful in explaining or amplifying the Act, but produced new concepts, as it were, if taken in its own right. Take as another example, advertising. The requirements were that premises should advertise for their variations in the local press and yet some local authorities were taking it upon themselves to advise local residents, neighbours of the business, about the impending application. Now, it seems bizarre that you needed to do both and in fact the advertising was compounded by lots of local problems. Newspapers with space were premium charging on the limited amount of classified space that they allowed and so on. So these were issues that were not addressed and became problems; probably out of all proportion. Q11 Dr Pugh: So how did an individual person running a premise resolve this issue when they found that in one local authority one set of advice had been given and in another local authority another set of advice was being given? Did they refer to the LACORS regulatory services and their website? Mr Bish: Well I could obviously speak for my own members who came back to me and I thrashed around and I would also endorse what Stephen has said here, which is that LACORS have been hugely helpful and officials in most respects have been hugely helpful in local authorities. So you just have to go virtually on a case by case basis and say this is the position, this is a for-instance, how do I advise this member of mine. We have taken back the best advice available at that time. Q12 Anne Main: You mentioned stress zones as being one of the contradictory pieces within it. What sort of advice then have you given to any local authorities which have come to you talking about stress zones? Mr Bish: It is not really for us to give advice to them. Q13 Anne Main: Or to businesses. Mr Bish: To members. Where they feel disadvantaged, they must make their representations to the local authority when it comes to a hearing or, if they are not satisfied with the outcome, reserve the right to take the matter to appeal or further. Q14 Anne Main: And have you had some situations of stress zones being operated? Mr Bish: Absolutely. Q15 Mr Olner: The licencees have made complaints about the guidance and the lack of clarity, consistency and inadequate time to apply for licences, but the same could have been said for people who objected to the licences being given. Mr Bish: Indeed; certainly. Q16 Mr Olner: Do you have you any comments about how the systems worked for people wishing to put in legitimate complaints about licences being extended? Mr Bish: Absolutely, to the extent that the system has allowed for a certain number of days for notices to be given, but by the time that the information has reached an individual, a neighbour "in the vicinity of", to quote the regulations, the time has been very short for them to assess the impact of what this variation means to them and to make representations to the local authority. Hence the headlines that we have seen in the newspapers saying that people have been disadvantaged by the application from the pub, or the whatever, in the area to do something. It is a pity; it has not been of licensees' making. Q17 Mr Olner: Do they say they are disadvantaged on the appeal side as well? That is on the application, but if the application is allowed, did they have the right of appeal and were they disadvantaged there? Mr Bish: I do not think so. Q18 Chair: May I just clarify that point? If you accept that residents were often not given enough time to formulate their objections, would you, representing the industry, have been willing to see the process made even lengthier in order to give residents reasonable time? Mr Bish: I think so; yes. It is not for me to represent the residents' point of view here because nobody has spoken to me; I am picking up anecdotal information. Above all, licensees want to serve the community in which they operate and it does them no favours to be cast as the villains of the piece, mostly in the press, when something goes awry; hence my earlier remarks about advertising and the local authorities making it clear that such and such an application from the local pub has been entered. Let everybody have a fair go at this and in fact, the longer the time, the greater the time for mediation. I believe this imposes an enormous responsibility on local authorities to achieve it before the matter comes to a hearing, because they have that chance to do it. Q19 Mr Olner: How many cases have gone to mediation and how successful have they been? Mr Bish: I am not the right person necessarily to answer that question. You may hear later in this session from somebody who can answer better and it will be anecdotal, because a lot of work is done behind the scenes, as it were. The point about mediation is that it is not formalised, it is down the phone, it is on an email, it is resolved before the matter comes officially in front of the committee. 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-funding? Mr Alambritis: We think it should be self-funding, 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. Memoranda submitted by Councillor Audrey Lewis and Mr Andrew Fisher
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Councillor Audrey Lewis, Chair, Licensing Sub-committee, Westminster City Council, Mr Andrew Fisher, Head, Licensing Unit and Tony Kelly, Project Manager, Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council, examined. Q23 Chair: Welcome. May I make the point that we have your written evidence, so we do not need to go over points again which you have made in the written evidence. Members have that and will have read it. May I also just ask each of you to introduce yourself starting with you, Mr Kelly? Mr Kelly: My name is Tony Kelly. I am employed by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council as Project Manager for what has been termed the Licensing Act 2003 Project. Mr Fisher: I am Andrew Fisher. I am the Group Manager with day-to-day responsibility for the licensing unit and therefore for the implementation of the Licensing Act in Bolton. Councillor Lewis: I am Audrey Lewis. I am the executive Cabinet Member with responsibility for community protection and licensing in Westminster. Q24 Mr Olner: We have heard, both from evidence that we have obtained and certainly through newspapers that local authorities are struggling to get their licence applications through their licensing sub-committees in the appropriate time. Why is this? Surely the demand was predictable. Was it the Government's fault or the local authority's fault? Mr Fisher: I think it is true to say that the demand was predictable: the difficulty has been created because lots of the licences came in towards the end of the process. That was probably quite predictable. That in itself has resulted in a large number of the applications, which then needed to go to a licensing sub-committee hearing, all needing to be arranged within a fairly short period of time. I think it is that that has caused the difficulty. Q25 Mr Olner: I know from my own local authority that local councillors have worked tremendously hard and put in a lot of hours trying to get the licences right. Mr Fisher: Indeed. Q26 Mr Olner: Do you think there should be scope to have those licence committees enlarged somewhat? They are restricted in size. Should they not be enlarged, so perhaps the load could be spread a bit more over other local council members? Councillor Lewis: We certainly lobbied very hard. If you remember, the original Bill said only 10 members. We protested strongly and got it up to 15. I think in a sense the horse has already bolted, because we needed the ability to have more members during the predictably very challenging time of transition; it is less important now because hopefully things will not come in at the same rate again. If I could just refer to your earlier question, far from being predictable, we had extensive talks with the licensed trade in Westminster and the national association and were led to believe that it would be front-loaded rather than back-loaded. So to get nothing at the beginning and 40 per cent in the last week put our resources under an enormous challenge. Q27 Chair: Do you have an understanding of why that happened? Councillor Lewis: I think it was a combination: very late regulations coming out, guidance coming out late, regulations coming out at the last minute, a much more complex form than anybody anticipated, the fact that a lot of people did not realise they were going to have to get new plans drawn, lots and lots of people turned out not to have a current personal licence and our magistrates were inundated with people doing transfers because they suddenly needed to get a personal licence to become a designated manager; lots and lots of problems there. Partly also I think, the fact that if you did it in February, you would have to pay again next February and this was a disincentive. Q28 Mr Olner: You talked about lobbying. Which department of government did you lobby? Was it the ODPM or the DCMS? Councillor Lewis: A combination of both of those, plus through our Member of Parliament. We made representation when the Bill was in the House of Lords on these points. When I say both DCMS and ODPM, we wrote to the ODPM on the point about numbers of councillors and said "Look we're an excellent council, can we please have the flexibility to have more councillors, because of the pressure ours will be under?'. They referred the letter to the DCMS who acknowledged it and a year later we have not had a reply. Q29 Mr Olner: So you think the ODPM should have kept their eye on the ball and that is where they should have been increased. Councillor Lewis: It might have helped, certainly in that regard. Q30 Mr Lancaster: The councillor has outlined why she feels that some 40 per cent of her licences were in the last week. Can Mr Kelly and Mr Fisher perhaps outline why they think their licences were so late and also whether it would have made any difference if the application forms or the guidance had been issued that bit earlier? Mr Fisher: Human nature is part of the answer to that question. I think there was a tendency to ignore it in the hope that the dates might move or simply because people did not get round to filling the forms in until there was an urgency about it. Mr Kelly: It is just a cash flow thing for small business in a lot of cases. They would rather spend £1,000 or £1,800 in August than incur it sooner than they need to in February. Councillor Lewis: May I make another point? The forms were difficult. We did a lot of publicity beforehand and tried to be helpful. I was asked by my local Japanese restaurant whether I would help them with their application and I told them precisely what I thought should go in every section; I did not actually fill out the form. They got it back with five mistakes which I had not been able to predict. They were very prescriptive and there was no slippage. We should like to have been allowed to say "Oh that's not going to affect the outcome" and proceed. Q31 Sir Paul Beresford: What was the reaction of your community halls and your church halls? They are mostly run by volunteers. The ones I have come across in my constituency have shrieked with horror at the complexity of form, the fact that they are volunteers and so on and so on. Have you had the same reaction? Mr Fisher: Generally that sector has found the process difficult to deal with. An incident has occurred recently in Bolton where a group has taken the temporary event notice route and wishes to perform a play, but they want the play to run for five or six nights during the course of a week and of course that cannot be covered by one temporary event notice. They will either have to have a break in the middle of that and apply for two temporary events notices or go for a full premises licence. So I think it is an area where it has caused some problems. Q32 Sir Paul Beresford: Do you think the temporary event notice limit should be hugely increased? Do you think it is sensible to set a de minimis level, below which a small hall does not have to apply at all? Mr Fisher: That is a possibility, or perhaps to differentiate between theatre groups, for want of a better term, and those who are providing different types of regulated entertainment which might be more disruptive to local residents, or where it involves some other type of activity. Mr Kelly: If a terminal hour were attached to temporary event notices, which would be 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock in the evening, and a different view taken upon those, then that might simplify it for the church groups and amateur groups. Q33 Alison Seabeck: You obviously had a flood of applications at the end. Do you think anything could have been done to incentivise businesses to respond more quickly, perhaps in the same way as the Inland Revenue advise people to get their self-assessment forms in, some sort of cash incentive to do that earlier? Councillor Lewis: I should like to see an early payment incentive. I should also like there to be some incentive for them to pay at all, because there is absolutely nothing in the regulations which makes them have to pay and we would have to pursue any debts through the civil courts and that would be an additional burden. Q34 Dr Pugh: May I quote some evidence we have had in front of us here, which is from an applicant and says "I had all my documents with me, everything was in order, the only thing I did not do was get the back of my passport photo signed by someone known to me who would state it was a correct likeness". The application was rejected. I should have thought it was fairly easy to tell whether something was or was not a photograph of a person. Councillor Lewis: That signature on the back is a complete fiasco anyway. There is absolutely nowhere in the form where they are asked to say who that person is. They could have obtained any signature and it would have done, there is no room on the form for a date of birth to be put in, anybody could apply because the police have no way of checking; they have been totally reliant on the magistrates court all these years and checking with the date of birth evidence in front of them. All these things have gone in the new organisation. Q35 Dr Pugh: It is technically an error and the form gets rejected for any kind of error. There are minor errors and there are major errors but there does not seem to be any uniformity between local authorities and whether they interpret it as a minor error and they take the application, or whether they send it back through the process all over again. Did you seek further clarification on what is an allowable mistake and what is not an allowable mistake from anybody? Councillor Lewis: We certainly did. On plans, we tried very hard to get much more flexibility about what kind of plan was acceptable, because that was putting people to a great deal of unnecessary expense apart from anything else, and we would have liked to have seen a lot more flexibility. We did not get any guidance on a lot of these things. We have asked for it on many occasions, we have written letters pointing out the problems we were encountering and not had a response. Q36 Dr Pugh: So what is happening? Is it a case that people in different authorities are making up their own minds? Councillor Lewis: We eventually got 93.2 per cent of our applications regarded as valid and that is because the more we went on, the more we tried to find good excuses. We would go back to people, we would say "We'll hang on to them; all you have do is get a cheque in. Come in and see us, sign it". We would not send stuff back. Q37 Dr Pugh: What percentage of people ended up putting in their applications more than once, do you think? Just a guess. Councillor Lewis: Probably not a lot putting them in de novo, because we tried to help them along the process. We had seminars during the process, we went down to the Chinese community and other communities and sat there and helped them fill in their forms. We were bending over backwards to try to get as many as possible in correctly. Q38 Dr Pugh: But there is no guarantee that what you did is what other local authorities did. Other local authorities might have applied the rules far more rigorously and less sensitively. Councillor Lewis: It is possible. Mr Fisher: On that point, we would guestimate that we probably rejected round about five per cent of the applications, largely for failure to advertise properly. We had our enforcement team inspect notices which were displayed on premises and it was those inspections which generated the largest number of rejected applications in Bolton. Just to pick up on the point that was raised before, I like to think that we approached it in a sensible manner and that that sort of very minor fault in an application would not result automatically in rejection. But we have to remember that we have employed additional members of staff, we have given them very clear guidance on what constitutes an acceptable application and what points should cause the application to be rejected. It has not always been possible to take that entirely practical and pragmatic approach with respect to each application. Mr Kelly: Generally, things could be resolved within a very short timescale. For example, if we received an application with a copy of the justices' licence which was not appropriate, or was out of date, or what have you, we would contact those people and if they could turn it round in a reasonable period, then we still accepted that application. Q39 Martin Horwood: Clearly there has been a huge problem with the timing of the applications and the volume of applications and collectively we seem to be laying quite a lot of the blame at the door of DCMS in terms of the level of bureaucracy and the timing of the regulations and the timing of guidance, but one of the interesting things in the Federation of Small Businesses' evidence to us was that they have detected quite huge variations between local authorities, who are obviously in the same position with respect to DCMS. For instance, they say generally local authorities with good guidance and clearly accessible information on their website have had a better response rate than those which did not offer good guidance and in some cases no guidance at all. They quote variations between 77 per cent of all possible applications and as low as 30 per cent of all possible applications coming in within one week of 6 August deadline. Do you think you did it better or worse than other authorities of which you are aware? I think I can predict the answer. If so, what kind of publicity and marketing of the process worked well? Councillor Lewis: By definition, people who have made representations to this Committee have probably been very thoroughly into the whole matter. Licensing is very important in the City of Westminster and we took it very seriously, we spent a lot of time and trouble to try to get our local policy right for instance and to get the consultation on the local policy correctly done and then to try to interpret that for people. We sent out a copy of our policy to every licensed premise for comment, not just the trade bodies and so on. Some local authorities did not think licensing was as important, and probably did not all the way along the process. It probably did not have as high a profile or as much will; indeed I met quite large London local authorities who did not budget to spend a single extra penny on this process. We decided we had to do it at a level which was appropriate and therefore set aside really substantial sums in order to do that. I think it all follows along from there. Mr Kelly: Where we were able to engage with local groups, and I am citing say the registered clubs in Bolton and the off-licences, we met with them at group meeting et cetera and we explained to them what we perceived the benefits of applying early to be and in a lot of cases they did. With respect, it was a great number of the larger pub groups, the brewery groups who caused the August rush and it was rumoured that was a tactic undertaken by these groups to try and to flood the system at the eleventh hour. I am not saying whether it was or whether it was not; that was the rumour. It certainly was something which did happen and it was the larger pub companies and pub groups which did put in massive numbers of applications right at the end. Councillor Lewis: They also put in absolutely blanket applications which took no account whatsoever of whether it was a residential area or a non-residential area; they came in identically at the last minute. Q40 Martin Horwood: You did not quite answer my question about what techniques you think were the most successful. Councillor Lewis has a little bit in saying that you communicated your policy to every single possible applicant. Are there any other techniques that you thought were successful? Mr Fisher: I think local authorities will have taken different views. My view is that the important issue was one which Councillor Lewis has mentioned, the attitude that the local authority took to the process, the importance which was attached to delivering this process and recognising very early on in that process that it was going to generate lots and lots of work, that there was a major administrative task to be performed and to put in place the staffing structures and the mechanisms to enable that to be done satisfactorily. In Bolton, a massive amount of our information probably did not find its way onto a website, but we very actively engaged with the local press and ran a series of articles to try to encourage businesses to submit their applications, warning them of the consequences of not doing so, telling them that if they got their applications in early, they could have a one-to-one meeting with a member of staff who would actually walk them through the process and they would come out at the other end with a satisfactorily completed application form et cetera. Q41 Martin Horwood: Do you feel that kind of proactive attitude was encouraged by Government? Councillor Lewis: Initially, no. Mr Kelly: It is something we did to try to make life operationally better for ourselves. We proactively sent out application packs which included a step-by-step guide for applicants as to how they should go about filling in the forms, not just the 21-page form but the other forms which were necessarily completed alongside that, so they were all referenced and people were given fairly simplistic instructions on how to fill in the whole collection of forms. Mr Fisher: I think that Government could probably have done more to help that process, but I am not sure that it should be seen as the responsibility of Government to encourage that type of good practice. I think they could have helped by having more timely guidance, having the regulations published a little bit earlier in order that we could have been geared up better to discharge that responsibility. Had we had that, then I do not think that Government could have been criticised for it. I think it is the responsibility of the local authority to grasp that task and to deliver it. Q42 Chair: One of the other bodies putting in evidence, the Network of Residents' Association has suggested that liaison committees should be mandatory. May I ask your two authorities whether you had liaison committees and whether you found them useful? Mr Fisher: Bolton did not. Councillor Lewis: We have had a committee with the entertainment industry, quite a broad group, plus residents, for many years but I do not think it could possibly have coped with 3,000-plus applications, because it would have had to be in almost permanent session if it were going to go boring into any of those at all. Q43 Anne Main: Numerous points you have just been discussing keep touching on cost: officers, enforcement and dealing with it. Would you say this is going to cause you a budgetary deficit on councils? Do you feel the fees are going to cover it? Do you feel this is going to mean a rise in the council tax? Is it over onerous financially for a local council to deliver? Mr Kelly: We have done certain projections in Bolton and we are very much in the dark as to what the enforcement costs are likely to be. We are still liaising with our fellow enforcement bodies. Without saying too much, it looks as though we shall be there or thereabouts. We could be slightly under, slightly over, but whether we recover our overall costs will depend upon the enforcement costs; it is marginal based upon the enforcement costs. Councillor Lewis: The structure of the entertainment industry in Westminster, where you have a large number of existing very large venues which already open late at night, very drink-led, means that enforcement costs are, by their nature always going to be high. A great deal of work needs to be put in on those sorts of outlets and we have therefore seen clubs whom we might have charged in excess of £20,000 going down to a few hundred pounds, without even the accelerator put on them because they have been defined as nightclubs. We cannot see, if we are going to do anything like the sort of job we are required to do, that we will not be millions out of pocket unless something very miraculous occurs. Q44 Chair: You would support a variable fee structure rather than a flat one. Councillor Lewis: I would support a very, very, very wide structure. I think the problem has been that we have tried to get all sorts of different kinds of premises into a very narrow band. I think particularly capacity and hours of working should be included in that and there has been no discussion on them so far. Chair: Thank you very much indeed; we have to move onto the next round of witnesses. Memoranda submitted by Local Government Association and Institute of Licensing Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Councillor Chloe Lambert, Deputy Chairperson and Mr Patrick Crowley, Licensing Manager, Kensington and Chelsea, Adviser to LACORS, Local Government Association, Mr Philip Kolvin, Chair and Mr Jeffrey Lieb, Vice Chair, Institute of Licensing, examined. Q45 Chair: Would each of you just say who you are? Mr Crowley: I am Patrick Crowley. I am the Licensing Manager at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. I also represent the Association of London Government on the DCMS Advisory Committee and am a member of the LACORS national licensing policy forum. Councillor Lambert: Good afternoon, I am Councillor Mrs Chloe Lambert. I am here today as Deputy Chairman and independent group leader of the Local Government Association. I am also a member of Aylesbury Vale District Council in Buckinghamshire. I sit on that council's licensing committee. I also serve on that council's development control committee. I also have to tell you that I am a serving magistrate on the central Buckinghamshire bench, that is in the Thames Valley Commission and I used to sit on that bench's licensing committee panel circa 1995. Mr Kolvin: Philip Kolvin. My day time job is as a licensing barrister, but I am here as the Chairman of the Institute of Licensing. Mr Lieb: My name is Jeffrey Lieb. I am one of the vice-chairs of the Institute of Licensing and I am also the Licensing Manager at Watford Borough Council. Q46 Chair: May I ask the first question then which is about the LACORS guidance not being legally binding? We have been told by some witnesses that, as a result, local authorities have cherry-picked from it to suit them. Do you think the guidance should be legally binding and do you think that authorities have been cherry-picking? Mr Crowley: It is in fact advice rather than guidance - I do not know whether there is a difference. LACORS receives queries and they have a number of policy advisers around the country. The policy advisers, who are people like me, licensing officers, give their view and LACORS creates the advice. As such, I think it would be very difficult to make it legally binding. Mr Kolvin: My take is that there is too much guidance out there. The national guidance, the Secretary of State's guidance, is 200 pages long. There is a great deal of confusion out there as to what the proper procedures are and there has been a lack of clarity. Q47 Chair: To amplify on that, would you think that the guidance that the Government have put out has been too prescriptive or not prescriptive enough? We have had particular complaints about the requirements for advertising and also the rules about the hearings and procedures. Mr Kolvin: There are two different things there. The advertising requirements are too restrictive. Some questioners asked before about latitude. I am a lawyer and I get asked a lot of questions by the trade and local authorities about latitude. The problem is that in the way the Act is drafted and the regulations are drafted all these points are jurisdictional. So if the advertising notice is not on light blue paper in Times 16 point Roman font, then the application is not duly made. As an institute, we asked the Government to write in a slip rule and discretion, so that something which was basically compliant was allowed through. Unfortunately, the Act and the regulations are drafted in exactly the contrary sense, so unless it complies to the letter, there is no jurisdiction to determine the application. So far as the guidance is concerned, this is the Secretary of State's guidance, the two big problems are on stress areas and hours. The perception out there is that the Government are blowing hot and cold in initially saying that in order to reduce the problems of people emerging from premises en masse longer hours are needed; the more lately by letter of 13 September saying that really the views of residents are paramount. No-one is quite sure what the rules are and that is going to be a very big problem when it gets to the magistrates' court. So far as nuisance in the public domain is concerned, the guidance was that in essence licensing is only relevant when it is something to do with stress areas. There are endless arguments about what a stress area is and whether that bit of guidance is complied with or not, whereas the previous position was simply that if premises impacted environmentally on their surroundings, then it was a relevant matter for licensing authorities. It seems that by drawing up the guidance in that particular way discretion has been removed from local authorities to deal with things in their wisdom on a discretionary basis. Councillor Lambert: From a member of a licensing committee's point of view who also sits in a magistrates' court, I would say that the guidance, both to local authority members and to magistrates, has been confusing. The LACORS guidance has been very, very helpful, but it is specific guidance to the local member that needs to be expanded on. Mr Crowley: I would echo what Mr Kolvin said about the Secretary of State's guidance, specifically in relation to longer licensing hours, where licensing committees have now sat through the transitional period to a large degree and have had regard to what the guidance says, which is to go for longer hours. Then we get a letter from the Secretary of State in mid-September saying, "We didn't really mean that; we meant listen carefully to what residents say", which is a big conflict. Perhaps, if that is the way the Government view it, it is a bit late to say it. Q48 Anne Main: The premise behind it is staggered opening hours or staggered coming out times. Can you see anything in the Act that would deliver that because it does seem a bit contradictory? Do you think things could have been made clearer on how local authorities could have delivered this staggering? Mr Kolvin: There is a very serious problem at the heart of the legislation and we are very short of time, so may I speak bluntly. Parliament effectively was told that a zoning experiment in Scotland had not worked and we needed to get away from zoning, in other words, fixed hours. It was not quite right, that was not how it had been in Scotland. The experiment which had failed in Scotland was a different experiment of street designation orders, where different streets were designated in a different way. The Act will not deliver staggering: it will deliver the opposite of staggering. By encouraging longer hours, what is going to happen is one commercially-driven later hour and it is going to be worse than the current system because it is not going to be an hour which is clear. Whereas previously the police at least knew that chucking out time was 11 o' clock, now it could be any time according to how business is going on that night. Q49 Anne Main: Australia and Canada have backed a full study on exactly what you have just said. Mr Kolvin: Exactly. The way to handle this is to allow local authorities to treat matters strategically, but the Act prevents local authorities treating matters strategically because they have no discretion absente relevant representation, so they have no means of taking an overview and intervening in the system to ensure that there is a sensitive removal of people from premises according to some pre-ordained time. I have to say that my own view, as a lawyer dealing with these, is that the Act is likely to be counter-productive; I hope I am wrong. Q50 Chair: The evidence we have had from the Government, ODPM, is that licensing authorities report there is genuine variation in licensing hours rather than a shift to a single later terminal hour. Is what you have just said based on your supposition or actual evidence? Mr Kolvin: It is based on talking to an enormous number of people in the industry: lawyers, industry people and local authorities. Q51 Chair: Based on reality or based on what you think will happen. Mr Kolvin: Based on reality. The position is that one can apply for longer hours. The guidance has been to give the longer hours, the longer hours are, on the whole, being awarded, except to some extent in the metropolitan areas where councils such as Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster have stress policies. So there is a move towards longer hours, but what is effectively going to drive the terminal hour is business. You are not going to leave your bar open when there is nobody sitting in there: it is business which will determine when the premises actually close. Mr Lieb: To add on to that as well is the fact that certainly a lot of the larger organisations have put in blanket applications. Although there may be a desire for different opening and different closing hours, within one town where there may be a number of operations from one business, they are actually all applying for the same hours. Q52 Alison Seabeck: I have a couple of areas to ask you questions on: the first is the regulatory burden. The Act was intended to be a deregulating measure bringing six regimes into one. Is your view that this has been successful in that particular capacity? Do you think that once we get through this transition period things will bed down and it will actually work better than what was there before? Councillor Lambert: I think things will take a long time to bed down and speaking of the guidance which has been issued from the DCMS, it has not really been sufficient to help local authority licensing committee members. Mr Crowley: The experience we have had as well is that the licensing committee have had its hands tied to a certain extent by the Secretary of State's guidance and because they have had to have regard to that have given decisions which residents are not happy with. The review process, which cannot start until 24 November, is going to have a significant impact. Q53 Alison Seabeck: Councillor Lambert said "a long time". What do you mean by "a long time"? Months? Years? Councillor Lambert: I have people saying to me "Chloe, why can't you go along and speak about your local pub". I have local publicans saying to me "I want to do X, Y and Z". That is where the blanket licensing hours change, with karaoke, live music, 2.30am. Most people in my area do not want that, but licensing applicants are being encouraged to do that by the Act, which is setting up a tremendous amount of work for local authorities who have over-stretched resources. Mr Lieb: The point I want to make very briefly is that the actual principle of consolidating six separate regimes is in itself sensible and putting it all within one house. There are obviously difficulties about the mechanics and how that has been achieved. Mr Kolvin: I should like to agree with Jeff and add that I do see a difficulty in future, that there is something of a void in the local authority structure at the heart of the legislation. It is a marvellous idea to give the power to local authorities, but a lot of protagonists who are within this system are going to have their own roles diminished. If I may just pick three examples: one is the ward councillors who have basically been ruled out of this system and a lot of them feel a great sense of grievance; they are devoted to their areas but cannot really play a role. The second example is members who have been left largely untrained under this new regime and there are not a lot of resources out there to train members and of course, they do not get a discretion unless somebody makes a relevant representation. Our perspective in particular is that of the licensing officer. There is genuine dispute around the country, amongst the lawyers in the industry and in local authorities themselves, as to whether the licensing officer is entitled to make a representation to his own licensing committee as to what he has seen, secondly as to whether he is entitled to recommend to a licensing committee what to do in X, Y, Z circumstance and thirdly, if a licensing officer sees breaches of licence conditions actually being committed, whatever they may be, to report it, institute a review or do anything about it. All of that is because of the way the legislation has been written and there is a real danger that the department which should be at the fulcrum of this regulation and management of the night-time economy has had his powers actually stripped away by this legislation. To me, that is a serious structural flaw which is going to make future work on the legislation quite difficult. Councillor Lambert: Unfortunately, it has also increased lack of accountability for the licensing committee member, particularly the local member and that is where I come back to: local members need to have their role further clarified. Q54 Chair: Local authorities have always determined these things in a quasi judicial manner: hackney carriage licences for example are quasi judicial and always have been. To that extent it is not different. Councillor Lambert: It is different to us because some of us also sit on other quasi judicial committees such as development control, where we are getting different advice and different guidance, specifically as far as the local member is concerned. That is what needs to be sorted out because the public have to deal with us. We all work for the same council in their eyes; the council is one body whoever is sitting on it. Mr Kolvin: Very frequently there is a triangulated position, an application which is not acceptable would be acceptable if only conditions were applied or something were negotiated away. If you strip the licensing officer's ability to make representations out of that equation, it ends in conflict when instead there should be conciliation. This argument is a very important one for the working of the legislation. Q55 Mr Olner: Has mediation played any sort of role whatsoever between those seeking the licences and the committees granting them? Councillor Lambert: Certainly in my authority's experience and that is the one I know most about, we have done our utmost to involve all sides, both the licensed trade, people who run local shops. Through the LGA I know vast experiences, different experiences throughout the country on a number of different councils, different sorts of authorities. At the same time, I am supposed to be concentrating on the economic development, which I am sure we all would support, tourist trade and so on. You have had evidence submitted about that from previous speakers today. Q56 Mr Olner: So did mediation work? Councillor Lambert: Mediation is considered to be slightly different. Mediation to me, as a licensing committee member means our head of licensing, who is over-stretched and under-resourced, not an uncommon position --- Q57 Mr Olner: Is this not an historic sort of knock back? Councillor Lambert: No. Q58 Mr Olner: Here you are, an ex magistrate, sitting next to a lawyer and I would suspect that neither of you really wants mediation because it is doing you out of a job. Councillor Lambert: No, no; it is the opposite, certainly as I am still a magistrate. Mr Kolvin: No; it is the opposite. As an institute, when we responded to the regulations, we asked for two things. We asked the Government to give a longer lead time between representation and hearing, at the moment it is 28 days, to allow more time for mediation and secondly to provide a better structure for the giving of information by both parties so they could see where each side was coming from. However, because that is not happening, the dispute is being taken into the council chamber, whereas really many of these disputes are easily resolvable if only you could get the parties talking at an earlier stage. I know this from handling appeals on behalf of licensing authorities: once you get parties talking, so much more can be resolved. However, the regulations are structured so as to engender conflict rather than conciliation. Mr Crowley: My own experience is that we have been under-resourced and over-burdened but where we have had the opportunity to involve mediation, it has worked. I see in the future, when the workload has evened out a bit, more mediation and experience shows it has worked. Q59 Mr Olner: Do you think then, as we understand the mediation role more, that there will be a role there for the local ward councillor and even the local Member of Parliament? Councillor Lambert: Absolutely. I would say that was of paramount importance, the lowest local level. Mr Crowley: Absolutely. Mr Kolvin: Certainly Q60 Anne Main: Following Councillor Lambert's observation on tourism, do you feel, looking at tourism and the way it develops in some city centres, that there should be a greater ability for the local council to be able to decide policies which are suitable for tourist areas? Councillor Lambert: Yes. Q61 Anne Main: So you have more flexibility. Councillor Lambert: We do have a certain degree of flexibility here, because I hope all local authorities have drawn up their own licensing policy statements, policy documents. When those policy documents were drawn up, they actually probably, and I include myself in that, were not aware of the vast realm of things that you have to consider when trying to increase accountability and to bring licensing more into the democratic arena. To my mind that was what the Licensing Act was supposed to do: make us all think more about it in terms of safer communities. Q62 Anne Main: Do you think it did? Councillor Lambert: I think to a certain degree it has, but it still comes back to local determination at the lowest local level and that means the local member not being disqualified from talking about a licensing application from a publican in her own village, which has happened to me. Q63 Chair: Councillor Lambert, you are also here representing the Local Government Association. Councillor Lambert: Absolutely. Q64 Chair: May I ask what the LGA is doing to make sure that councils and councillors are aware of the additional powers they are actually given under this legislation to manage the small number of establishments which are responsible for the largest difficulties, that is the ones selling alcohol to people who are already drunk, for example. Are you doing training programmes for councillors? Councillor Lambert: We certainly are; I have chaired many of them and so have my colleagues from Westminster. Q65 Chair: I hope you will concentrate on using the powers that are there to the utmost. Councillor Lambert: We do, but it comes down to local evidence again. Q66 Anne Main: Do you think you have enough powers? Has this Act given you enough power, or do you feel it has in some way limited your power? Councillor Lambert: I think it has potential for increasing our power; we just need to draw back and review it. I am very glad that we are able to give evidence to you here today, because I have seen the Angst which has been caused most of all, if I may say so, to members of the public who do not understand what is going on. Q67 Mr Betts: What is the LGA going to do in terms of its self-review and how local authorities have performed? Are you going to do a review and then maybe issue some advice yourselves? Councillor Lambert: Yes. Q68 Mr Betts: And draw out examples of good practice and give those to other authorities which may not have been quite so good. Councillor Lambert: We do that already and have been doing so for quite a long time, even before the Licensing Act took effect. I know that our member authorities have run umpteen training courses; I know them because I have been on them. I know from evidence already submitted by the LGA that that is precisely what local authorities do and are faced with, but it all comes back to limited resources, over-stretched resources. Q69 Chair: You will be aware of the other evidence put forward to this Committee, not just verbally but written evidence which is on the website. Clearly from the trade's point of view a very strong message is coming through that there is a great variability between local authorities and a need for those poorly performing authorities to learn from the better performers. Councillor Lambert: Absolutely. It is all part of the improvement agenda which the LGA is all about. Chair: Indeed. Thank you all very much. We are now moving on to the Ministers. Thank you. Memoranda submitted by Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: James Purnell, a Member of the House, Minister for Media and Tourism, Mr Stuart Roberts, Licensing Team, Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Mr Phil Woolas, a Member of the House, Minister of State (Local Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, examined. Q70 Chair: Thank you very much, Ministers. Could you each say who you are and identify yourselves. Mr Woolas: Phil Woolas, Minister for Local Government. James Purnell: James Purnell, Minister for Licensing. Q71 Chair: Excellent. I will leave it entirely up to you to decide which one of you answers which questions, or both. May I start off? You introduced a system which has required all the licence holders to apply for licences at the same time, even if they already held licences which were not due to expire. We have heard from the Federation of Small Businesses that they would have preferred people to have been applying as the licence expired. Why did you choose the route of everybody having to apply at once and why did you do it in such a short space of time? James Purnell: I think the difficulty of having two regimes operating at the same time would have meant they would have caused confusion for the public, but in particular for enforcement agencies. So if you had somebody operating under an old licence, they would have been subject to one set of laws, if you had people who had applied for their new licence, they would then have been operating under the new laws with different powers to the police. The idea of having a concurrent running of the system would have been very, very difficult to operate in practice. It would have been possible to have different groups of people applying at different times or to have a longer period; all of that would have been perfectly possible. I think in fact that in Scotland they are having different sets of deadlines. It was felt that having one clear deadline was the best way of communicating that simply to people and I think that the fact that, thanks to a lot of work from council officers and licensees, we have now got to 97 per cent does suggest that the system did not fail completely. Q72 Chair: We have been hearing a huge amount of criticism about the way in which local authorities were sent the application forms extremely late and indeed also about the way in which the guidance that was coming from the Department changed over time and the order in which the guidance came out, so that many authorities had to draw up their local licensing policy before all the guidance was out. Can you explain why, given the length of time the Department actually had, why there were so many problems in providing local authorities with the forms and the guidance? James Purnell: I think it is worth saying that this has been a huge exercise to change a piece of legislation which dates back to World War I, which brought six regimes into one and which has involved massive changes to the system, going from something with lots of centrally set hours executed by magistrates, to something with local flexibility operated by local authorities. In terms of the guidance itself, we have been trying to respond to people's concerns all the way through. People have been coming to us and saying, for example, "We want local authorities to be more flexible in this, that or the other" and we have therefore issued extra bits of guidance and extra bits of evidence. We could have issued one set of guidance and then said "That's it, it's your problem, deal with it", or we could have done what we have tried to do, which is to respond to concerns as we have gone along and then you get accused of having given different bits of advice at different times. We thought it was better to respond to people's concerns. Q73 Chair: But one very specific allegation is that early on in the process, the guidance has been given that longer licensing hours were preferable and then later on, that the views of residents should be given more weight and most residents generally speaking want shorter hours. Was there a change in view? Is that a clarification or a change in policy? James Purnell: No, that was a re-statement of the fact that where there were objections from local residents or indeed from other people, licensing committees were not just within their rights, but had a duty to make a decision based on the four licensing objectives. So that came out of the LGA in particular coming to us and saying that they had some local councils who had concerns that there was a presumption for longer hours over people's objections and we made it absolutely clear to them that there was no such presumption where people had objected. Q74 Alison Seabeck: May I ask what representations the ODPM made to the DCMS when it became apparent that there was only going to be a three-week time slot between the regulations being laid and the applications beginning? Mr Woolas: Well, it is very fair to say that throughout the whole process, there has been a very close working relationship between the two departments, often on a daily basis; we have tried to ensure that that organic link has been there. We were able to track the figures for applicants with DCMS to the point where, as has already been said, we estimate around 97 per cent of the establishment have actually now applied. There was never any sense of anything like a crisis which was perhaps generated in others by some of the public comment. Q75 Alison Seabeck: I take the point you have just made about some local authorities managing the extra capacity, but as this process was evolving, did ODPM do any work or talk to the LGA in terms of trying to find out how local authorities would manage this increased work? We heard evidence earlier that some local authorities increased numbers of staff so their capacity was built up, Westminster for example, whereas we know others clearly did not and have not coped as well. Was any work done by the ODPM? Mr Woolas: I do not have not figures in front of me, but there were significant, let me put it that way, representations from individual local authorities and of course, through Members of Parliament on their behalf and discussions between the LGA and ODPM and of course LGA and DCMS and ODPM to look at the administrative impact and the cost impact both in the short, the medium and the long term to try to ensure that the regime was self-financing and to try to ensure that local authorities were in a position to administer the scheme properly; indeed the latest representation I think was on Wednesday or Thursday last week to update us with the LGA's viewpoint. Q76 Anne Main: You said you were taking references from those other authorities. How about the police authority who have moved their position somewhat in terms of being able to police. Have you looked at the greater resource implications of that or how this could ameliorate the situation? James Purnell: I am not quite sure what you are referring to by the police authority changing its position. Q77 Anne Main: Different police authorities have since come out saying they cannot police it, that the implications are too huge for their resources. I just wondered whether you had had any further meetings about this. I know that Hertfordshire is saying this and I just wondered whether you had had any further meetings to try to reassure the public or police that these things can be dealt with. James Purnell: We have regular meetings both with the LGA and with the police themselves. The police through ACPO and local government through the LGA and LACORS are represented on the high level group which I chair, as in fact are ODPM, so that has met on a regular basis all the way through. That has also been supplemented by meetings of our advisory group which operates at official level and also ad hoc meetings with the police and the LGA as has been necessary. There has been a number of those meetings. Police funding is obviously something for the Home Office rather than ODPM or the DCMS, but clearly there will be significant savings from this Act for the police from the reduced burden of having to go to the magistrates' court for example, as well as potentially different requirements from having a different licensing regime. It is worth remembering of course, that the Act came from concerns from the police that the two spikes at 11 o'clock and two in the morning were causing flashpoints which were leading to extra crime. These issues can be looked at from different perspectives. Q78 Anne Main: Do you believe the Act will deliver that staggering that the police want? James Purnell: Yes; the evidence we have so far from our surveys is that staggering is happening. Q79 Sir Paul Beresford: Have you responded to any of this consultation? Have you made any shifts, any change at all? James Purnell: Yes, we have. We have announced a review of the guidance, for example, which we have bought forward to 24 November so that we could review it immediately to learn from the experience of the 190,000 or so licences which have been looked at. In the case of circuses, for example, we changed a second point today to reflect their concerns. People have made a number of requests to us in terms of being flexible about the guidance, all of which we have responded to whenever we have been able to do so. The village halls made some requests to us, consulted on the limits on the numbers of temporary events notices. To be fair, people would say that where we have been able to flexible within the constraints of primary legislation, we have sought to be so. Q80 Sir Paul Beresford: You touched on the village halls. Village halls complain about the fees, they complain about the need for plans, they complain about the fact that trying to manage it when they are volunteers made it very nearly impossible - many of them are looking forward to instant rigor mortis - and the fact that 12 10s were not enough. What are you going to do about all of these? Anything? You indicated that you would. James Purnell: We responded to those concerns by commissioning ACRE to do some research on the actual effect on village halls and we will look at that research. Q81 Sir Paul Beresford: So after they are dead you are going to revive them. James Purnell: Well the evidence that we have from ACRE, whom we have met on a number of occasions, is that village halls have applied successfully for their licences and they made it clear to us that they did not want the Act to be delayed for that very reason, because people had put in a large amount of effort and paid fees to be able to get those licences. We commissioned ACRE to do some evidence and research and we will act on the basis of that evidence. We have consulted during the summer about whether to extend the number of temporary events notices and we will --- Q82 Sir Paul Beresford: To what? Thirty-six, 40, 50? James Purnell: We did not put forward a precise suggestion. We asked people for their views, which is right, and we have had a range of views. We will make a decision based on that as well as a number of different issues, the make-up of the forms, things like that and we have responded to those concerns. Q83 Sir Paul Beresford: What about the suggestion of having a de minimis level for village halls? James Purnell: The difficulty about having different temporary events notices --- Q84 Sir Paul Beresford: No, no. I mean why not have a de minimis level where some of legislation need not apply to village halls? James Purnell: Well you should let me answer the question. I was about to say that that would require us having different limits for different types of premises and that would require primary legislation. We have not ruled anything in, we have not ruled anything out, we are currently in the process of analysing the responses to our consultation and we will make an announcement. Q85 Sir Paul Beresford: So you would welcome a deputation. James Purnell: From whom? Q86 Sir Paul Beresford: Me and my village hall representatives. James Purnell: I should be happy to meet colleagues. Q87 Chair: May I broaden out the point that Sir Paul was making about the de minimis rule? One of the points made by the Federation of Small Businesses was that the businesses which had had the most trouble really were businesses where the sale of alcohol was not really the primary purpose, but was additional; they cited florists who deliver flowers and champagne. Are you saying that a de minimis rule needs a change in the primary legislation and that if you did it, it could also consider those sorts of businesses as well? James Purnell: There are two ways to address that. One would be to change the level of the fees, and I will come onto that in a second, but if you were to treat different categories of premises in a different way, that would require primary legislation. Sir Paul was asking about what we have done to listen to people's concerns and representations. Something else which we did was look to people's concerns about the level and type of fees that we were setting. We brought in a multiplier for the big pubs, the kind of vertical drinking establishments, so that they are charged more and we also revised the fees in the light of concerns from local government and agreed to this review which Les Elton is conducting which no doubt has been mentioned to you already today. That will report in November and have some sort of intermediate responses and we will then have a full report in November. As part of that they are already looking at the effect on small shops, village halls, guesthouses and sports clubs. The dilemma here, it is worth stating just very briefly, is that you can either have a very simple system which does not have its own requirement to collect lots and lots of information, which is what we have gone for, we have used the proxy of rateable value and the advantage of that is that it is easy to collect and does not create a lot of extra cost for local authorities. Or you could go for something much more precise and targeted which involves collecting lots of information, but that cost would then have to be recouped from the premises and the licensees and in effect they might be no better off. If the average cost goes up, they actually have not won anything by having a more targeted system. Q88 Chair: But there might be a shift from small businesses to big businesses. James Purnell: You could make changes within the rateable value; you could charge people at the lower end less. However, we have made a very clear commitment that the system will be self-financing, so if you did that you would then have to increase the cost paid by other people within the system. Q89 Martin Horwood: After the rush to licence application, there is now the rush to issue the licences. What is the legal status of currently licensed premises which applied in time but have not received approval by 24 November? James Purnell: If they have not received it because the licensing committee failed to process it within two months, then it is deemed automatically granted. If it has been processed by the licensing authority, then I think it is right to say that they are operating legally but they would obviously also want to have their licences in their hands. We have had representations that some local authorities are currently facing trouble doing that. However, our advice is that the majority are coping with that well. We are therefore in discussions with LACORS, which is the body which does this within local government, about whether any extra help needs to be provided to any authority that may be having difficulties and, if there is, whether any contingency plans need to be put in place. This has been raised with us at the last high level group and the view from stakeholders was that at the moment they did not think there was going to be a significant problem. Q90 Martin Horwood: Your view may be that in general authorities are coping quite well. We have clearly heard evidence today that some are coping by trying to shoe-horn the process through somewhat and having to turn down people on quite technical grounds sometimes and there does not seem to be the latitude in the process to allow simple slip-ups to be reconsidered in time. Do you know on what kind of scale that is happening? James Purnell: My impression is that the opposite is the case. With 190,000-odd premises going through, being administered by lots of different local authorities, you will obviously have examples of where that is not the case and by the very fact of devolving this power to local authorities, you will have different interpretations in different places. My view, from talking to both the industry and to LACORS themselves, is that people have really tried to be as flexible as they possibly can and actually I think I would pay tribute to licensing officers and to councillors for the constructive way in which they have approached this. Of course there will be exceptions to that, but if you ask me what my view is about the generality, my view is that people are trying to be flexible where they are able to be. Q91 Martin Horwood: We have at least one council, Westminster City Council, which told us that they have had to refuse applications because they did not have time to process them before 6 August. Were you aware of that happening? James Purnell: If it is an application for a conversion and they did not have time to treat it within the two months, then that would be automatically granted; a contingency plan was built into the legislation. If it was a separate point, then I should be happy to look into it, but that contingency is built into the legislation if people do not have the time to deal with a conversion. Martin Horwood: There seems to be a contradiction there actually. Q92 Chair: May I pick you up on the reply you made to Mr Horwood about flexibility? We have been told repeatedly, both by applicants and by councils, that the system is too prescriptive, the prescriptions about the advertisement for example, and also about the timing of the hearings which has then not left enough room for mediation; sometimes mediation has been going on, but has had to be stopped for the hearing. Almost everybody who has put in evidence to us has asked for a slip rule, that is for authorities to be given the power to vary the conditions if it is essentially a technicality. Is the Department looking at that? James Purnell: On the first point, we are happy to look at all of these points through the review of the guidance and we will also look at your conclusions as a select committee as part of that review of the guidance. That is a genuine attempt to look at areas where things could have been done better and we are already starting to think about what that could be in a whole range of areas. It may be that more flexibility is possible around the kinds of plans which people may be able to submit. It may be that more flexibility is needed around vicinities, the definition of vicinity. It may be that there are other more cost-effective ways of advertising to local residents the fact that people are applying for variations. We are very happy about this and we are not in any way precious about saying we got it all absolutely right. It was an extremely complicated process involving 190,000 applications and bringing together six pieces of legislation, so we are happy to look at that. In terms of the slip rule, we were specifically requested to do that earlier on before the summer and we did not, because we were worried that it would actually make the system less flexible. If we were to have passed a slip rule saying you can be flexible about A, B, C, we were advised that there was a risk then that local authority legal departments might say "Ah, well, they have not said that you can be flexible about D, E, F" and therefore it would have reduced people's flexibility. Instead, what we did was to write to people and say that we were encouraging them to be flexible about this and please exercise that flexibility as far as they can. Q93 Mr Lancaster: You are saying that at the moment you cannot be flexible on A, B, C, D, E or F, but by allowing people to be flexible on A, B, C, that would mean less flexibility. James Purnell: No, I am not saying that. We wrote to people saying they could be flexible on all of those things, it was for them to interpret their legal responsibilities and we hoped that they would interpret them flexibly. We were giving people licence to be flexible on all of those things. Q94 Mr Lancaster: You must forgive me, but I do not understand how the implementation of that would lead to less flexibility. How can it be less flexible than it is now? James Purnell: If a council writes to say they are worried about these six things and we pass a slip rule saying here are three things that they can be flexible about, the implication could be taken by legal departments that we are saying that they cannot be flexible about everything else. Q95 Mr Lancaster: But they cannot be flexible. James Purnell: A good example was the plans, where people asked whether they had flexibility to decide the kinds of plans which they were allowed to submit. We said yes, absolutely, they were. People, for example, are treating a local corner shop differently from a city centre nightclub and we would encourage that kind of thing. We felt it was much better to give people a general encouragement to be flexible than to specify the things on which they could be flexible, because the danger was, and we had to follow the advice that we were given, that in doing so people would take by implication that they could not be flexible on the other things about which they were concerned. Q96 Mr Betts: Are you prepared to be very flexible where you are looking at the guidance and prepared to make some really quite fundamental changes. One of the pieces of evidence we had verbally a few minutes ago from the Institute of Licensing was that it was not just the odd issue that was the problem with the regulations; it was the whole way in which they were written. They were written on the presumption that here are the rules and this is what you will implement as a local authority. You do not really have the scope to go away and exercise common sense, because we are laying down how you will do it. That was the fundamental problem: the whole format in which the regulations are written despite the request not to do it like that when the initial consultation was done on the matter. James Purnell: This is a point about the guidance which we issued to people. Q97 Mr Betts: Yes. James Purnell: We have to strike a balance. We have been criticised for not giving people enough guidance and leaving it all up to them. Q98 Mr Betts: All the regulations; the regulations and the guidance. James Purnell: We tried to strike a balance between giving people guidance and giving them enough clarity so you could then have consistency between different local authorities. That was something which was said very clearly to us by stakeholders when the Department was putting the Act and then the guidance and regulations together, versus other people saying they wanted flexibility. We had concern, when we were preparing that guidance, from magistrates and the police, from people in live music for example, that if we gave too much discretion to local authorities, that discretion might be something which would go against the things which those stakeholders were worried about. We disagreed with that; we did want to give people discretion, but we had to strike a balance between giving them clear guidance and allowing people to make decisions within that overall scope. We are happy to look at whether we got that balance right and we made it quite clear that we think the emphasis should be for councils to be able to take decisions on licensing based on their local circumstances. Q99 Sir Paul Beresford: One of the witnesses mentioned that one set of guidance notes was 200 pages long. If that is correct, did you read them before they went out? James Purnell: I was not the Minister when they went out. To be fair, it is worth remembering that we were bringing together six different regimes which had incredibly detailed rules in each of them and we were asked by the industry in particular to preserve what are called their grandfather rights. They had all sorts of conditions which they had obtained under previous regimes which they wanted to carry over. It would have been much simpler to say they could not do any of that and then we would have had a much thinner guidance document, but in responding to their concern to have the ability to preserve their grandfather rights, we therefore had to invent a system which was flexible enough to reflect all of those previous conditions and it therefore ended up being a longer form and a longer set of guidance notes because it had to cope with everything from a public entertainment licence for a village hall to selling by an online wine retailer. You can imagine that it had to be fairly comprehensive in scope to cope with all those 194,000 different licences. Q100 Sir Paul Beresford: It is very helpful for a minister to sit on the other side of the fence and see it from the point of view of the village hall licensee and so and so forth, which I hope you are doing now. James Purnell: We liaise, as I have explained in detail, with all of those bodies, with ACRE with the sports clubs with the Federation of Small Businesses, to make sure that their concerns are taken into consideration. Q101 Dr Pugh: May I go back to flexibility? You were asked specifically about the period between the application going in and the application being heard, a longer period of mediation. If that is in the guidance, I should have thought that was not something any local authority would consider they had any flexibility to vary at all. Are you saying now that if they alter the dates, they extend the timescales to allow for mediation, that is permissible in your understanding of the law? James Purnell: No, they cannot alter the timescales unilaterally. What I am saying is that we are happy to look at the timescales. Q102 Dr Pugh: So there is no flexibility on timescales. James Purnell: No, not on the timescales. Q103 Dr Pugh: Can you explain why you are not flexible about acrobats, but you are quite flexible about clowns? James Purnell: Who said that? Q104 Dr Pugh: The rules on circuses. I do not want to set you off on circuses but you did explain that one of the anomalies in the rules for circuses is that definite regulations are laid down which require that if you have an acrobat you require some sort of licence; it is not apparent if you just have clowns that you do. Mr Roberts: The Act does not define clowns or acrobats or circuses for that matter, it defines activity. Again it is for interpretation. I understand some authorities interpret things differently, but an acrobat is a display of physical skill so therefore counts as an indoor sport and that is entertainment. A clown could be defined as playing a role, in which case it might be licensable, it might not be. There is nothing in the Act which talks about clowns. Q105 Dr Pugh: It is only inflexible on clowns really, but quite flexible on acrobats. Mr Roberts: It is not for us. James Purnell: Nothing changed there. It is worth clarifying that that was carrying over the rules from the previous licensing regime into the current one; there is nothing new there. Q106 Chair: So there was already a disparity between acrobats and clowns. James Purnell: There was. Q107 Chair: Which you did not rectify. James Purnell: There were different regimes for different types of activity which, when the Act went through Parliament, it was not thought needed rectifying. Q108 Martin Horwood: I just want to come back to the answer you gave me earlier about applications which were out of time being deemed to be approved. In their memorandum to us Westminster City Council said, and I think they are talking about exactly the same thing though I am not certain "Westminster was not able to determine all the applications for variation it received. Approximately 140 could not be determined within the period of two months allowed by the Act and accordingly were deemed to be refused. The volume of applications was such that it was necessary to devise a system of prioritising applications to be dealt with". Were they wrong? James Purnell: My point was about conversions. As you know, there are two different things one can apply for under the Act: one can apply for conversion of the existing rights or one can apply for a variation. Typically, what people who applied for a variation would have done was to apply for both. If I apply for a conversion and that is not granted within two months - the point I was making earlier - that is deemed to have been automatically granted and that premise will be able to continue functioning. If they have also applied for a variation, as would be the case in your example, and that is not processed within two months, the Act then deems that has not been granted and they can then appeal to magistrates. We did work with the Magistrates' Association and with the Justices' Clerks Society to put in place arrangements for that to be done as quickly as possible where the application to vary had not attracted any objections. Where it had attracted objections, it would be dealt with through the magistrates. What it is worth noting about that is that the Act put in place contingency mechanisms both for conversions and for variations but decided that conversions, because they were already permitted under the old Act, should be deemed to have been granted, whereas for the variation, because that might be more controversial, there should be a contingency plan whereby it went to the magistrates. Q109 Anne Main: You did mention flexibility. Would you be prepared to be flexible over zones? The Government have put emphasis on communities and lively town centres and there has been a lot of concern about the fact that it seems to be the larger premises, to which you referred, the great big vertical drinking culture, which are starting to take over the town centres. Town centres still have a lot of people living in them who are very, very concerned that the effect of this Act will be to close down the small businesses selling alcohol, the smaller pubs which do not go to the longer hours and leave us with the big vertical drinking place to which you have just referred going until two or three in the morning. James Purnell: I think the opposite is the case. The current law effectively has a loophole which allows vertical drinking establishments to keep on trading after 11 o'clock because they uniquely are the places which can do so because they put on dancing and music as well. If I wanted to open the kind of smaller establishment which you are concerned about, I cannot open after 11 o'clock unless I am a members' club. This actually levels up the playing field and allows those decisions to be made locally by local councils based on this strategy that they have for developing the town centre. Q110 Anne Main: But you would not allow, for example, looking at cumulative impact or zones? Some town centres are very, very lively and this is what is worrying communities. How do we make sure that we have a town centre which not only encourages drinking but encourages tourism and a holistic approach to people living there? They fear that under the Act as it stands, unless you have a degree more flexibility about cumulative impact especially and zones and so on, you will get the reverse of what you want, which is a sustainable community within a town centre. James Purnell: That is exactly what the Act does. Previously councils had very little ability to refuse a licence, they were unable to say the area was already saturated and they wanted to have the ability to have a presumption that they will refuse licences. The Act, for the first time, allows people to do that. I was in South Hams recently, for example, and in Torquay they had brought in exactly that kind of cumulative impact zone which allows them to limit the number of premises which open and they have conditions which they are applying. Q111 Anne Main: How does that work? You are talking about flexibility but the guidance which has come out is quite confusing. How can that work when the presumption is in favour of granting licences? How can it work then that you can start saying you will not grant any more because of the cumulative impact? I am confused and a lot of local councils to which I have spoken, my own included, are very confused about the guidance. They believe they have to push ahead with granting licences because that is the presumption of the government, yet they are very worried about the city centres being taken over by so many licensed premises. James Purnell: That is why the Act creates this cumulative impact power where people believe they already have saturation to be able to have a presumption that they will not grant extra licences. That is exactly what Torquay have done and before this Act they could not do that. Secondly, the Act allows people to target the hours of premises on an individual basis. If they are worried about the behaviour of a particular pub, they can ask for a review of it any time they want to. Residents can ask for a review at any time they want to and those powers will be exercised by local councillors who are the people accountable to their electorate for the health of their town centres. Overall it is a much more effective system than the one which existed before. Q112 Anne Main: Are you content that people can prove which particular pub is causing a problem? A lot of people are saying that it is very, very difficult, the onus being on the residents, to try to prove where the harm is coming from. When people are in a city centre at night you never quite know where they have come from. The guidance is to local authorities and they are very concerned about how they may put in what you obviously see would be positive effects and they want those positive effects but do not see how to deliver them. James Purnell: The problem of proof occurred under the previous regime where people had to go to a magistrates' court and fulfil the standard of proof required by a magistrates' court. Under the new Act they will be going to the licensing committee and it will be for the licensing committee to take a view. They do not have to decide it on that basis of legal proof, they will be able to do so on what is effectively a lower burden. Q113 Chair: Which of your two departments is going to take the responsibility of making sure that local government understands what its powers are under the Act to achieve all the things we have just been talking about? James Purnell: We are doing that together. Q114 Chair: Which of you would take the lead? Which one can be blamed if it does not work or be given the credit if it goes well? Mr Woolas: We will take the credit. The answer to that question should be seen in the context of the Act. This is a devolutionary Act as part of a wider policy to give local authorities and local community representatives more powers to intervene, particularly in town centres but also in rural centres. It is inevitable that if you have a devolutionary policy, you will have different reactions. Obviously Westminster, from whom you have heard, is going to be different from a rural area in some of the counties. I believe, and the evidence we have rather backs this up, that because greater powers are going to local authorities and community representatives within local authorities the situation will improve significantly and that it is the status quo which is the problem and not the new Act. Q115 Anne Main: What evidence was that? I have read a significant tome, the International Journal of Drug Policy and that looks at quite a few places where they have deregulated in the way you are describing and they did not see the delivery of the good things you hope to happen. I am hoping that we have learned from looking at that and you feel you have the measures put in place to make sure we do not have the same problems which they experienced such as nightlife stretching into the morning and causing problems with street cleaning, increased drug use and so on and not a decrease in drinking which is what you hope to happen. Mr Woolas: The intention of the Licensing Act was not just to address the issue of licensing and alcohol: it is one measure to allow particularly towns and cities in this regard to have policies and strategies which can be shared, sometimes with town centre partnerships, sometimes with local authority partnerships, to address a number of issues, the creation of leisure and family economies, the creation of a wider range of leisure activities, the ability to clamp down on social disorder, the ability, for example, to mix and match with taxi and hackney carriage regimes. What we are trying to do as a government is to give powers to local areas through local authorities so that they can address problems, particularly in town and city centres, in more of a joined-up way. From the ODPM perspective and from the local government perspective that is the right way to go and we should never forget the fact that both the LGA and the police representatives supported this Act and support its implementation. I am not denying of course that there are differences in different parts of the country, but that is inevitable if you have a devolutionary policy. The alternative is to have a heavily centralised policy. Q116 Dr Pugh: How would you respond then to comments made before this Committee a few minutes ago by the Institute of Licensing who said that under the Act as it stands there are not enough strategic powers for the local authority to engage in a mediated discussion with licensees and so on? Mr Woolas: Enough strategic powers for the local authority? Q117 Dr Pugh: Yes. Mr Woolas: I would react to that by saying that if local authorities and the Local Government Association want to bring those requests to the table, we shall be more than happy to look at them. It is very important that the local town centre partnerships and local authority partnerships work. It is in that way that we will be able, I believe, to see the significant cost savings to local authorities and others as a result of this regime as crime is tackled and town centres are handled in a more effective manner. Q118 Mr Betts: May I pursue some points about local authorities? Clearly you are going to have a review of the fee structure. Will that also include the extent to which the costs incurred by local authorities really are being covered by the fees in totality? We are being told that there are lots of indirect as well as direct costs, costs of enforcement as well as simply processing the applications. The LJS certainly believe that in total local government is out of pocket by about £30 million. Are you prepared to look at that totality as well as the individual fee structure problems? James Purnell: Absolutely and that is indeed the core reason why we set up the review by Sir Les Elton, that is why we changed the fees originally to address the concerns of local government and we made a very clear commitment that the regime would be self-financing so the fees would be set at a level which would cover the cost of administering and enforcing the system. We look forward to Sir Les Elton's recommendations on that and we would encourage the LGA to put forward as much evidence as possible of the costs of the requirements which the Act is putting on them. Mr Woolas: As you know, we operate the new burdens policy across government policy to endeavour to ensure that new regimes do not have an extra burden on local government which is unfunded. The policy in regard to this, as you know and I state it for the record, is that the scheme should be self-funding. An important point is that the evidence from the Local Government Association is looking at the start-up costs as well as the ongoing regime. It is also fair to say that in that examination ODPM would want to look at the potential savings as a result of the scheme, given the extra levels which local authorities have to influence town centre behaviour and town centre economies. You might call it an old burdens rule, but it is an entirely fair point. Mr Betts: In my experience of talking to local councillors two issues have come up in terms of the practicalities of operating. I have one local councillor who is a member of the licensing committee in Sheffield and just relating the workload they have had to the very limited number of people on the committee. Why do we need to restrict the numbers? I know we need to have people properly trained and have an expertise when they come to determine licence applications, but there are lots of other committees such as planning committees which we do not restrict in that way. Secondly, another local councillor turned up to make representations on behalf of his ward electors but could not speak because he was the local councillor and therefore was not allowed to make representations. Why are we so restrictive on that? Chair: Can we just tack on two questions so you can answer them all at once? Alison Seabeck: We heard evidence on that very issue about whether or not there should be continuity for councillors in terms of their representation on quasi-judicial bodies. Can you respond to that in the light of the fact that neither councillors nor MPs can make representations? Q119 Chair: I think that is a question for Mr Woolas, which is about the various different quasi-judicial panels which local authorities run: planning, hackney carriage licensing and this. Given that they are all three quasi judicial, it would be helpful if what was expected of councillors in the way they behave was the same on all three. James Purnell: In terms of limits, the reason for originally having a limit was that previously public entertainment licensing was done by very large committees and that had caused practical problems of getting people together and the level of training that people had had. It was therefore thought better to have a limit of 10 to 15, which would mean they would all be properly trained and it would be easy to get committees from that. In retrospect it may be that limit was unnecessary. What some local authorities, though not all, have done is to train up a wider pool and then substitute licensing committee members in when people are not available, when they go on holiday. As Audrey Lewis was saying to you earlier, that is now less of an issue going forward because that limit was only really a very practical issue during this high peak of work over the summer. I should just like to reiterate that we completely recognise that it has been a significant amount of work and we are very, very grateful to the officers and the councillors who have undertaken it. In terms of right to speak, councillors do have a right to speak as long as they are making representations on behalf of their constituents. We are happy to look at the issue of whether councillors and MPs should have a right to make representations on their own behalf without having representations from constituents. Q120 Mr Betts: If councillors actually live in their own ward and therefore they are a resident who could be affected --- James Purnell: Then they can. Mr Woolas: As a member of the committee? Q121 Mr Betts: No; not on the committee. James Purnell: If they live within the vicinity, then they can make a representation as a resident. If they do not qualify as being within the vicinity, they can make a representation if they have representations from constituents and there is nothing to stop them going out and getting those representations. Mr Betts: That is not how it is being interpreted. Q122 Chair: We might need to clarify this with your Department in writing afterwards. There is a certain degree of disagreement amongst us. It might be better, rather than ploughing on, to sort it out in writing subsequently. Mr Woolas: May I add two other points? In addition to the question which has been raised, there is also of course the consideration of the code of conduct of the standards board and the findings of the Graham review of standards in public life. Key amongst our considerations in the response is the evidence from this Committee. There are issues around what is called the double-hatted issue where restrictions are placed on councillors and perhaps have a perverse, unintended consequence. I would want to look at the issue which has been raised in the round to ensure that there are not further unintended consequences and that is a very important piece of work. We would want to look at the evidence you present in your findings on this particular issue. Chair: May I thank you both very much? We shall certainly be making recommendations and we are relieved to hear that you are both going to consider them and that we may actually be able to work with you to improve the system the next time round. Thank you very much. |