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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Policing and Crime Bill |
Policing and Crime Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris
Shaw, Andrew Kennon, Committee
Clerks attended the
Committee WitnessesDon
Shenker, Chief Executive, Alcohol
Concern Rob Hayward, Chief Executive,
British Beer and Pub Association Mike
Craik, Chief Constable, Northumbria Police, Association of Chief Police
Officers Shane Brennan, Public Affairs
Director, Association of Convenience
Stores Councillor Chris White, Chair of
Culture, Tourism and Sports Board, Local Government
Association Mick Creedon, Chief
Constable, Derbyshire Police, Association of Chief Police
Officers Paul Evans, Director of
Intervention, Serious Organised Crime
Agency Commander Allan Gibson, Detective
Superintendant Tristram Hicks and Detective Chief Inspector
Murray Duffin, Metropolitan
Police Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 27 January 2009(Afternoon)[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]Policing and Crime BillWritten evidence to be reported to the HousePC 01
Liberty PC 03 Wine and
Spirit Trade Association
PC 04 Stephen
Paterson PC 05
Association of Convenience
Stores PC 06 British
Retail Consortium PC 07
Outsiders
Trust 4
pm
The
Chairman: I[Interruption.] I
am prompted by that ringing tone to ask everyone in the room to turn
off all mobile phones and electronic
devices. If the
witnesses are settled in their places, I would like formally to
commence the afternoon sitting. I remind hon. Members and witnesses
that we are bound by the internal knives agreed this morning. The first
evidence session this afternoon must end by 5.30 pm and the second by 7
pm. I hope that I will not have to interrupt hon. Members or witnesses
in the middle of their sentences, but I will do so if I must.
Parliamentary procedure is extremely precise on the knives. The moment
it is 5.30 pm, I must halt proceedings and move on to the second set of
witnesses. Members will
find on their desks copies of a substantial amount of material
submitted by the Home Office to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory
Reform Committee in support of the Bill. It will not be circulated
again, so I ask hon. Members who wish to keep it for the duration of
Committee proceedings to take it with them at the end of the
sitting. I welcome this
afternoons first set of witnesses. For the record, may I ask
you to introduce yourselves to the Committee and state your name and
the organisation that you
represent? Chris
White: I am Councillor Chris White and I represent
the Local Government Association. I chair the culture, tourism and
sport board of that
organisation. Mike
Craik: I am Mike Craik, chief constable of
Northumbria police, and I am here on behalf of the Association of Chief
Police
Officers. Shane
Brennan: I am Shane Brennan from the Association of
Convenience
Stores. Rob
Hayward: I am Rob Hayward from the British Beer and
Pub
Association. Don
Shenker: I am Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol
Concern.
The
Chairman: Thank you all for submitting
evidence and for coming to be questioned this afternoon. We will start
with a question from James
Brokenshire.
Q
44James
Brokenshire (Hornchurch) (Con): The Bill deals
with certain offences and the creation of mandatory
requirements. The Secretary of State may set out national mandatory
requirements, and local authorities will be permitted to impose
additional requirements on licensees within specific areas. Will
witnesses state what information they have been provided with to date
on the conditions that will be expected? One difficulty for the
Committee is understanding what conditions are likely to be required.
It would be useful to hear from industry representatives and the police
the types of conditions they expect to see imposed through the
mandatory code requirements, given that the code is yet to be drawn up
and
finalised. Mike
Craik: Certainly. On behalf of the
Association of Chief Police Officers, I largely welcome the proposals
in the Bill. As for examples of mandatory requirements, the things that
spring to mind that need discussing are a range of possibilities around
pricingspecial officers, two for the price of one, 24 hour
drinking, vertical drinking spaces, and trying to create an arena where
more people sit down and drink, rather than cramming a lot of people
into one place. There is also a real opportunity to do something about
advertising and the sale and presentation of drink. I can best
exemplify that by describing the sort of things I saw in my local
supermarket over Christmas. There were mountains of phenomenally
reduced very strong lager50p a canand drink could be
purchased from different parts of the premises, rather than through the
normal cash till. There are a range of options that it might prove
useful to discuss and form some agreement
on. Shane
Brennan: We do not knowwe are in the dark, as
Members areexactly what will come forward. We know in broad
headline terms that the Government are considering things like price
and promotions, as my colleague has just said. They are also
considering issues such as the training of staff and other things,
particularly in the category B area. The biggest concern that we have
at this point is that we do not know the scale of what we are talking
about or the parameters of what we are looking at. That limits the
ability of what we can say at this stage in terms of
specifics. Rob
Hayward: I expect to be told broadly what might be in
categories A and B on Thursday. Parts of the on-trade have been invited
to meet Home Office officials, so we might have some idea on
Thursdaywe are expecting so. However, before we get
thereor possibly after, if we are not toldwe face the
same problem as other people on the panel. You can speculate, and if
you do so, you face enormous costs, which is the biggest problem that
we are concerned about under these circumstances. As a Parliament, how
can you be asked to approve an enabling clause, when we really have no
idea what is included, let alone what the costs or the benefits
are?
Q
45James
Brokenshire: The Department of Health published a code at
one stage that set out certain requirements that got into the public
domain. Is your understanding that that is the model, or will the
Government be moving away from that?
Rob
Hayward: My understanding is that large parts are no
longer likely to be included, but we have no certainty about that. The
document to which you are referring seemed to be like a basket of
everything that anybody could think ofit was truly a basket
case. One has to remember throughout that the mandatory elements of the
proposal relate not only to the places that Shane and I represent, but
affect all licensed premises, whether a hotel, restaurant or tourism
venue. Many castles and the like have licences, as well as Wimbledon
and Ascot. All those venues would be affected by any
code.
Q
46James
Brokenshire: Mr. Shenker, perhaps you could
indicate your thoughts on the conditions issue and the effectiveness
and appropriateness of the mandatory conditions
route. Don
Shenker: To start with, I would like to say that we
are broadly in favour of the Bill and are very much in favour of the
introduction of a mandatory codeor enabling powers for a
mandatory code. As all the speakers have said, the point of having the
enabling power is that there can be some consultation on what would be
the most useful elements to have under national
conditionscategory Aand which would be local. They have
to be proportionate to countering the level of harm that we have seen
in both the on-trade and with some of the loss leading and deep
discounting through the off-trade. Clearly, the evidence shows that to
try to tackle price, it would be far more effective to do so on a
national level. Even sectors of the industry would say that if you are
going to do anything about price, it is easier to manage it on a
national level rather than locality by locality. I will defer to my
colleagues perhaps to argue something different.
Certainly, some of the more
ridiculous price offers have to be tackledfor example, where
women can come in free between 10pm and 2am, or can have free vodka all
night. Some of those promotions, which we have seen in different
localities, have to be tackled. The question is whether to tackle them
on a national level, by having a ban on happy hours throughout, or
whether to leave them to local decision making. After consultation, we
will get greater understanding of those issues. At Alcohol Concern, we
do not have a definite view yet as to what the absolute national or
local conditions should be. We are very keen that price is tackled,
both in the on and off-trade. We are keen, too, that price promotions
of the type that I have mentioned are dealt with. However, it is clear
that many premises act responsibly, and they should not be burdened too
much with a national condition. We have to find the right balance, in
short.
Q
47James
Brokenshire (Hornchurch) (Con): The category B conditions
are local measures that could be applied in areas where there is
concern about anti-social behaviour or nuisancethe kind of
issues that are one of the licensing principles, if I may put it like
that. The issue here is that if a particular venue is said to be
causing disruption, you can effectively seek a licensing review under
the existing powers of Licensing Act 2003. In other words, the local
authority can review the licence and additional conditions can be
imposed. The category B requirements seem to have the potential to
fetter local authorities, saying they are
only able to impose the conditions prescribed by the Home Secretary.
What is the Local Government Associations view of the
interrelationship between the existing Licensing Act review provisions
and the proposals of this second limb of the mandatory code, with these
additional conditions that local authorities could
apply?
Chris
White: A lot of this relates to the difference
between dealing with a single premises and dealing with a collection of
premises. The difficulties with dealing with single premises is that
local authorities do not have the power to initiate a reviewit
has to be done by the police. I think I understand the reasons, but it
is a problem for us and local residents find it difficult to
understand. We would first urge that councils themselves, using
information not least from local councillors, should be able to
initiate a review of a particular premises. That would make a huge
difference with problem premises.
Where you are dealing with
collections of premises, there is not a great difference between having
nationally imposed conditions and locally permitted conditions.
However, nationally imposed conditions will naturally be ham-fisted and
will not necessarily take local circumstances into account. Local
conditions imposed by councils could have certain advantages, if an
area had more than two premises with similar difficulties. Often, that
will not be the case. There will be a pub with vertical drinking, and
next door will be the nice restaurant where that sort of thing does not
take place. Then, there will be the other pub where older people go
because they do not want to go to the younger pub. In those
circumstances, local conditions are not going to be very useful.
Nevertheless, we welcome additional flexibilitythe more powers
we have to exercise locally, the better. We remain nervous about any
national approach to licensing conditions, whether that is a national
imposition or a national position.
Q
48James
Brokenshire: Do you have any concerns about the local
condition procedure? We want some certainty and, if local authorities
are to have discretion, it must be clear how they will exercise that.
From my perspective, the provisions have some echoes of the procedures
adopted with the alcohol disorder zones and that whole regime. Do you
see some parallels and equally some of the issues raised in relation to
the effectiveness and appropriateness of ADZs?
Chris
White: There are parallels with alcohol disorder
zones, and there has been lobbying from many quarters, not least
ourselves. Councils should have stronger powers in that regard.
However, I do not feel that this is as useful a way forward compared
with simply having a regime under which there is clarity through a
licensing policy that is there for all to see, which is debated,
discussed and refreshed every so often, and which the trade can see in
a particular area. Dealing with individual premises as problems arise
might help a bit, but, other than in extreme cases, it probably will
not do
so.
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©Parliamentary copyright 2009 | Prepared 28 January 2009 |