1 Report
1. The draft Legislative Reform (Minor Variations
to Premises Licences and Club Premises Certificates) Order 2009
was laid before Parliament on 8 December 2008 by the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The purpose of the Order
was to introduce an expedited process for dealing with minor changes
to the licences of licensed premises. The envisaged minor changes
cover small alterations to the physical layout of premises, for
example, as well as allowing for some rearrangement of licensing
hours. However, they do not include increases in the hours during
which alcohol is supplied, nor changes to alcohol provision between
the hours of 11pm and 7am.
2. In our previous report on the proposed Order,
we said: "Whilst in most respects we are satisfied with the
Order, we believe that an amendment to provide an added safeguard
for local communities should be introduced. Accordingly we recommend
that when a minor variation is being considered it should be a
requirement that a notice describing the proposed variation be
attached to the outside of the premises concerned for a minimum
of two weeks. This would allow for licensing authorities to be
contacted if the matter raised any concerns." We therefore
recommended that the procedure to be applied to the draft Order
be upgraded from negative to super-affirmative to allow for amendment
to be made. We note that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform
Committee of the House of Lords took a similar view.[1]
3. In accordance with the super-affirmative procedure,[2]
a revised draft Order was laid before Parliament on 26 March 2009,
along with a statement of proposed revisions. The Department has
accepted our recommendation and now proposes to require that a
notice of intended application be posted outside of relevant premises
for ten days after making of an application. In addition, it also
proposes a formal right for interested parties to make representations
concerning applications and a requirement for the licensing authority
to take such representations into account, although without any
opportunity for a hearing. Further, proposed minor variations
will be required to be entered onto the publicly available register
of premises' licensing details.[3]
4. We commend the Department for conducting an additional
consultation in a short time period. We note the observations
that were made in that consultation—in particular about
the likelihood of interested parties confusing the expedited with
the full application procedure and having unrealistic expectations
around the outcome of the representations process. However, if
the expedited application route is, as intended, confined to licence
changes that are properly to be considered "minor",
we believe that that situation should be manageable. The recommendations
that we made in relation to regular review of guidance, which
have been accepted (see paragraph 6 below), should assist in that
regard.
5. We note also the observation in the statement
of proposed revisions that the ten-day notice period will effectively
introduce a minimum processing period of ten days for applications.[4]
However, we do not consider that a delay of ten working days will
cause serious inconvenience to applicants in the broad scheme
of things. We further note that the savings from the expedited
application process are estimated to be of the order of 5% less
than anticipated as a result of slightly reduced take-up, and
that the application fee has been increased from £73 to £89
to ensure recovery of the costs of considering representations.
Given that the Department estimated the cost of full applications
to be upwards of several hundred pounds, we consider the small
decrease in savings and the small increase in application cost
to be proportionate to the benefit conferred by the modifications
we have suggested.
6. We are pleased that the Department has accepted
our recommendations on regular review of guidance to assist licensing
officers in having the correct steer on the nature of what is
a "minor variation", on reviews of the ease of use of
the licence review procedure, and on inclusion of the licensing
objectives on the application form.
7. Finally, we note that a number of technical drafting
changes proposed by the Lords Committee have also been accepted,
subject to retention of the Department's proposed wording in one
instance, namely the words "sold by retail" in
new section 41A(3)(e)(ii). We agree that that provides extra clarity.
8. For the reasons given, we are content with
the proposed amendments and recommend that the revised draft Order
be approved and made in accordance with section 18(8) of the Legislative
and Regulatory Reform Act 2006.
1 See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/lddelreg/21/21.pdf Back
2
Section 18(7) of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 Back
3
Section 8, Licensing Act 2003 Back
4
See paragraph 14 of the statement of proposed revisions Back
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