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Lord Thomas of Gresford : The Minister talks about practicality. I have two main points. First, since the Minister was involved in local government in his part of the world, the local authority has taken on the responsibility of dealing with licensed premises, so he has no experience of the expertise that they are building up in looking at such premises.
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Secondly, under subsection (6), the local authority has to make a judgment regarding these exemptions anyway. It is, presumably, for the local authority to decide whether,
"the principal use to which the premises are put does not consist in or include the sale or supply of alcohol".
Equally, it is for it to decide whether,
These days, what happens is that the local authority convenes hearings at which people give evidence. There is, then, no reason why a local authority could not come to a decision on an evidence-based approach, either along the lines suggested by the noble Viscount, that,
or on the basis that I have put forward in Amendment No. 69, that,
In any event, whether it be the Government's original drafting, the Viscount's amendment or my amendments, the local authority is required to make a judgment and to come to a decision on whether exemption applies.
As for the supply of alcohol, Amendment No. 68 premises that,
I said that that was an arbitrary time, but there is nothing wrong with encouraging licensed premises, such as an off-licence within an alcohol disorder zone, to tailor the hours that it is open to such a provision. Instead of opening until 9 o'clock and paying a charge, they open until 8 o'clock.
Neither do I accept the argument that if a person starts off sober in the off-licence and, having consumed three or four cans of lager, goes on to drink in a variety of other establishments, ending up in a nightclub, the off-licence at which he got his original drink, while sober, should pay the same as the club, which serves him alcohol when he is clearly drunk. There is a point when it can be said, "This licensed premises is less involved in creating disorder within this particular zone than other licensed premises". It is only fair that a distinction should be made. I do not propose the final mechanism, but there should be one that permits distinctions to be made.
Viscount Bridgeman: I am grateful for the support from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and to the Minister for his attempts to explain the reasonableness of his case. However, we are unconvinced by the explanation and still have a problem. Take, for instance, a really respectable and upmarket wine merchant's that happens to be in a disorderly zone. That is really a victim of a postcode lottery which requires recognition. We shall study
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carefully what the Minister has said, but we will probably come back to this on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 66:
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 67. The effect of the amendments would be to ensure that the two types of licensed premises set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) would be exempt from any charges imposed by virtue of the clause. The first type would be those premises whose principal use did not involve the sale of alcohol; and the second would be those premises where the availability of alcohol is not the main purpose for which individuals enter them. The way that I drafted the amendments means that they should not fall foul of the Minister's objections on the previous amendment, Amendment No. 64. Indeed, his answer to my noble friend Lord Bridgeman was that premises would be exempted anyway, if the availability of alcohol was not the main reason why people went into them—or, I think that he said, stayed in them. At this late hour, that conjures up some interesting ideas about what they might be doing.
My argument is that it is wrong to leave it to the discretion of the Secretary of State to make such exemptions. There seems no reason to include such premises in the charging scheme. The Minister has already said that they will not be included. If not, why not? If so, why not state that in the Bill? The removal of the word "only" in the amendment also has the advantage of allowing the possibility of creating further exemptions over and above those set out in paragraphs (a) and (b). Surely that is a sensible way to proceed. There must be the possibility of other exemptions, if it becomes demonstrably clear that certain licensed premises are unjustly caught up in the Bill without good reason or are disproportionately burdened. It is right that regulation should be able to take account of those circumstances.
This is one of the key concerns of the licensed trade. The representative organisations, such as the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores, support the amendments, so they therefore have the backing of a significant number of stakeholders who could be affected should the Bill become law in its present form.
I now find myself in horror because I used the word "stakeholders". Ten years of Labour government have clearly had some dreadful effect on me. I shall take the medicine tonight and get rid of that. Goodness me.
Those bodies, which represent responsible licensed businesses, support any measure to tackle violent crime and alcohol disorder. They have made that clear throughout all their discussions both with me and, I know, with the Government. They have actively
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supported voluntary codes of conduct and schemes to encourage responsible drinking and the retailing of alcohol. However, they are unanimous in voicing their concern that Chapter 2 would have a disproportionate effect on the retail sector without actually tackling the root causes of the issue. I beg to move.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I entirely agree with the amendment. There should be room for additional exemptions to be made to those named. As for the word "stakeholders", I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that the full Oxford English Dictionary, in all its volumes, says that its first recorded use was in 1976, by the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, so we have claimed it for the Liberal Democrats for some time.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I think that that is almost an admission of guilt. Anyway, it is not relevant.
The intention behind Amendment No. 66 is to allow for more exemptions to be included in the regulations to be made under the Bill. The amendment would insert into the Bill a requirement to include in regulation the exemption detailed in Clause 6. Taken together, the amendments would clearly open the door to a whole host of further exemptions, in addition to that in Clause 6.
As I said earlier, I understand why Members of the Committee might want to offer up such exemptions, but I cannot accept the amendments. It is important that we use the policy as an encouragement to a collective form of responsibility. I know that that sense of collective responsibility does not always make people on the opposition Benches entirely happy. It is an important principle, but I do not think that there is yet a common understanding between us that alcohol disorder zones are an instrument of last resort, as we believe, and that they are there as part of the general encouragement of such a collective responsibility. This principle could be eroded if we were to accept the amendments, and I do not think that that is in the best interests of the operation of the policy. By including it in the regulations, a plethora of exemptions would allow premises to avoid paying the charge. That brings a problem with it, because the fewer the premises that pay the charge, the higher the charge is likely to be. The charge must therefore be shared reasonably; such terms are more desirable.
I can, however, give assurances that the exemption in Clause 12(6) will be included in the regulations, and that guidance will be issued on the application of the exceptional clause. So there is the opportunity to flesh out more of what we mean by this. The noble Baroness says that too much is being left to another time in terms of regulations and to another place in terms of guidance, but that is the sensible way in which to deal with such issues of detail. I am sure that what I have said will not satisfy noble Lords on the Opposition Benches, but that is our approach to this, and I hope that at least my reassurance will encourage them not to press their amendments at this stage.
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