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6 July 2009 : Column 539
102: Clause 26, page 25, line 30, at end insert-
"( ) After paragraph 27 (appeals) insert-
"Premises which are deemed sex encounter venues27A (1) This paragraph applies if-
(a) premises are subject to a licence for a sex encounter venue; and
(b) their use would be use as such a venue but for the operation of paragraph 2A(3)(b).
(2) This Schedule applies as if-
(a) the premises were a sex encounter venue; and
(b) the use or business of the premises was use as, or the business of, such a venue.
(3) But the appropriate authority must cancel the licence if the holder of the licence asks them in writing to do so.
(4) In this paragraph "premises" has the same meaning as in paragraph 2A.""
Amendment 103 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.
Clause 26, as amended, agreed.
Clause 27 : Increase in penalty for offence
Debate on whether Clause 27 should stand part of the Bill.
Viscount Bridgeman: In opposing the inclusion of the clause, I in no way seek to weaken the ability of the police to take effective measures against irresponsible drinking and the violent behaviour to which it often leads. The link between the two is clear, and we would welcome effective measures to combat the sort of behaviour that blights communities. However, this is not an effective measure. Of all the clauses in the Bill, this one illustrates most clearly what is wrong not only with the Government's policies to prevent crime and tackle criminal behaviour but with their chosen methods of implementation. The Government have had to admit that there is a problem. Neither the number of people who are receiving fines for this offence or the crime statistics indicating the level of alcohol-related violent crime are falling. Instead, they are increasing.
The Government's policies to address the problem that they helped to create with their 24-hour boozing culture are not working and this offence is not proving to be a deterrent; so the Government come forward with their solution-they will increase the maximum possible fine from £500 to £2,500 in the hope that this will, and I quote, "send a message". They hope that the possibility of being on the receiving end of a really significant fine will make an impression where the £500 limit does not. This sort of thinking shows just how much government policy-makers are living in fantasyland. Do they imagine that people get drunk and violent after careful consideration of what fine might be imposed? Do they imagine that anyone out drinking in the streets early on a Saturday morning knows or cares what the maximum penalty for this offence is?
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We all know that the existing £500 limit has never been used. The number of people who have received a fine above £200 for this offence is in single figures. So who are the Government trying to send this clear and strong message to? The literature would suggest that they are trying to reach the people on whom the fine will be levied, but in the debates in another place, the Under-Secretary of State admitted that it was, in fact, to send a message to the police and the CPS. It comes as some surprise to this side of the Committee that the only method of communication the Home Office had with these departments was through primary legislation.
I would be interested to hear from the Minister what direct conversations have been held with the police as to the necessity or desirability, or point, of raising this fine, and as to the possibility of using the maximum level as it is already set.
There is much more that could be done to address problem drinking; more attention must be given to alcohol referral schemes, in particular. Levying ever heavier fines on a person with a drinking problem will not cure him. I see this clause as entirely unnecessary and, by giving the impression of running while the Government are, in fact, standing still, it is actively unhelpful.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: We agree with the sentiments here, in that the idea of simply raising the level of fine to a really quite disproportionate level will do nothing to solve the problem. We think the Government have been right to concentrate on the problem, but, as we said at Second Reading, it is not possible to legislate your way out of the binge-drinking culture that is causing so much of the problem.
The Government have put a number of things in place which we would say are good. For example, last year and I think into this year, the Home Office has run a series of workshops, which I might come back to and speak in more detail about later, aimed at all sorts of sections of not only those who sell alcohol, but also those who are trying to improve community safety. Those workshops have barely had time to take effect, in the training they have given people, for example. There have been other tools that the Government have come up with. They have their youth alcohol action plan, for example, which is a mixture of education, enforcement and action with industry and, again, that is a commendable idea.
So at one level, the Government understand that this is a matter of education and working across a very broad spectrum of people, from the industry itself to community leaders and the police, and that it is not just a question of fines. In fact, those on whom the fines are likely to be levied are unlikely to be able to pay them at this level, which will then lead to further criminal proceedings. That is not a particularly desirable outcome when it ends up with those people in prison, costing the taxpayer an absolute arm and a leg, without the problem really being solved. I hope that, during discussions on this part of the Bill, we can come to a better understanding of what the solution should be.
Baroness Stern: I support what has been said about this clause. The Minister will know very well that the binge-drinking culture is a social problem and not a manifestation of a lack of deterrents. As the noble
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This provision will apply in a designated public place. Will the Minister tell the Committee how those who are drunk will know whether the place in which they are drunk is designated and, therefore, whether this legislation applies? I am sure that I should know the answer to that, but I am afraid that I do not.
Baroness Hanham: In his reply, perhaps the Minister will give us an idea of what lies behind this. As I understand it, the sections in the 2001 Act that have implemented the fines in the designated areas have not been in for all that long. There has probably been very little opportunity for anyone to find out whether the designated areas are working and whether the fines are adequate. It probably is also worth remembering that in the court system fines are appropriate to a person's income. Quite a lot of people who indulge in binge drinking will not have a very high income, so it will not make the slightest difference whether they are fined a maximum of £500 or £2,500. It will still be at a level which is appropriate to what they are deemed to be able to afford. Perhaps the Minister will give us a view of his thinking so that perhaps before he finishes we may come back to this if necessary.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): As we move from sex to alcohol, I am reminded of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who wished to declare an interest on the second day in Committee, although I do not know whether he did. I suppose that I should declare an interest: I find that, within proper bounds, in the correct circumstances and in moderation, alcohol is rather enjoyable. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, saying that I know full well the effects of having too much alcohol perhaps is a little more than I would have declared.
Clause 27 increases the maximum fine for refusing to comply with a police officer's instructions to stop drinking-a person might or might not be very drunk-and/or to surrender alcohol-again, a person might or might not be very drunk-in a person's possession in a designated public place, to which I shall return in a minute, from £500, a level 2 fine, to £2,500, a level 4 fine. An offence is committed when a person fails to comply with police instructions to do that. I said that a person might not necessarily be very drunk and a couple of speakers have talked about that already. He is liable to a penalty notice disorder, a PND, and, on summary conviction, to a maximum fine of, at the moment, £500. Increasing the maximum fine for this offence will bring it in line with the maximum penalty for a similar offence of failing to comply with directions to leave. So this fine will not be out on its own.
Since 2001, local authorities have implemented 712 designated public place orders, DPPOs, throughout England and Wales. This clearly shows that local authorities support this power and believe that it will
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9 pm
So far the maximum of £500 has not been used; it has been percentages of that. Putting it up to £2,500 shows all those involved, and those imposing the penalties, how seriously we take this. A percentage of the £2,500 could be way over the £500. Even if the fines do not reach the maximum, the clause will send a clear message to deter the type of alcohol-related disorder and nuisance that we see in these areas.
The noble Baroness asked what happens if they are absolutely screaming drunk. I am afraid that when people get to that stage nothing makes a difference. There are a lot of stages before that where these things can have some impact. In Committee in the other place concerns were raised that this clause will not have the intended effect when people are told what to do. I can tell that that concern is shared here as well. I hope I am covering some of the points that make me think it will.
Statistics from the Ministry of Justice show an increasing number of PNDs issued for breach of this offence, with a twofold increase in the past two years. Some 485 individuals received a PND for this offence in 2004, 712 in 2005, 1,061 in 2006 and 1,544 in 2007. The increasing number of PNDs issued for breach of this offence strongly suggests that although DPPOs have proved useful for their intended purpose, more can be done to increase their deterrence effect. We consider that increasing the consequences of breaching a DPPO will deter more people from refusing to comply with police instructions to stop drinking or to surrender alcohol in these areas. This will also incentivise more local authorities to use DPPOs as an effective solution to their area's alcohol-related disorder and nuisance.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, asked if we are working with the police and enforcement agencies, and how much dealings we have with them. We are dealing with them across the board, talking through with them their full range of available tools and powers. Increasing this maximum penalty was one they discussed. As has been said by other speakers, this is not the only thing. There are a whole range of things one has got to use.
The noble Viscount and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, also asked whether we had done much training of front-line enforcement practitioners. So far we have trained 1,300 in use of appropriate powers and other ways of trying to do this. We have also talked about this maximum penalty.
I have touched on the designated area issue and have covered most of the points. We believe that this
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Baroness Hanham: I knew that the Minister would raise something I would want to come back on. He gave some indication of how many penalty notices have been issued. What is relevant is how many of those have been paid and how many breaches there have been. I do not expect an answer now but would be grateful to know how many prosecutions have resulted from those penalty notices not being paid. That is the only way that this offence comes into being. Then it would be easier for us to see whether the £500 was a deterrent. I suspect with penalty notices that people are not listening, whether it is £2,000 or £500.
Lord West of Spithead: The noble Baroness raises a good point. I do not know the answer, and I will come back to her. That is of course only part of it. It does not say how much it might have stopped other people offending, just knowing those fines are there. There is more to it than just that, but I will certainly come back with those factors.
What I did not mention but should have to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, is that we have launched six adult alcohol arrest referral pilots for young people. Those arrested under this receive professional assistance from trained workers, and the interventions will be available alongside these measures. This is a total package because, as with most things, it is not just about punishment. Lots of other factors have to be taken into account.
Viscount Bridgeman: On behalf of my noble friend Lady Hanham and myself I thank the Minister for that reply. I may not have been quite fair enough to the Government in acknowledging the steps they are taking in terms of alcohol education and so forth. However, with alcohol-related violent crime still rising, I feel that the jury is out and that we shall have to see how it goes. In the mean time, we shall study very carefully the reply the Minister has given.
Clause 28 : Selling alcohol to children
Debate on whether Clause 28 should stand part of the Bill.
Viscount Bridgeman: In opposing the Motion that this clause should stand part, I am afraid that I am not much more kindly disposed towards the second clause in this part of the Bill than I was to the first. Here we are looking at a change to the offence of persistently selling alcohol to children, lowering the bar from three occasions to two within three consecutive months. Again, I would have welcomed a provision that played
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In the debates in another place, the Government indicated that the police would welcome the opportunity to escalate the penalties more rapidly where they believe premises were wilfully relaxing their checks until they had received two warnings. Does the Minister have any statistics on the number of penalties and fines that have been issued to these premises for failing a test purchase? We have had a partial response to that already. Presumably there must be evidence of lots of £80 penalty notices on bar staff and £10,000 fines on licensees for the first two offences that the Government are failing to act as a sufficient deterrent. I look forward to hearing the figures.
The Government also claimed in another place that they were working with licensees to tackle underage drinking together, yet in this clause they seem to have disregarded their concerns entirely. Large retailers are worried that their high numbers of sales mean that they will rapidly hit the two-strike barrier even when taking all possible care, while small retailers are worried about the difficulty of training their staff to recognise the multitude of IDs that they are expected to vet, and all retailers are struggling to keep up with the ever-changing legislation and regulation they have to operate under. I have yet to hear or see any compelling evidence that this change will make any difference to the problem at hand. I hope that the Minister will be able to do better than his colleagues in another place in explaining just why we need this clause.
Lord Redesdale: I support this Motion and perhaps I should declare an interest. I apologise for not being able to speak at the Second Reading of this Bill, but I declare an interest as the owner of a particularly fine pub called the Redesdale Arms in Northumberland on the A68 just south of the Scottish border which serves particularly fine wine and beer and, of course, food. If anybody happens to be on the A68, it is a good road to take. Perhaps that is more of an interest than I should have expressed. I should also say that I am chairman of Best Bar None, which is funded by the Home Office, and is an organisation that deals with award schemes for best practice in pubs and nightclubs.
It is in that regard that I am interested in supporting this clause because although a large number of pubs deal firmly with the issue of underage drinking, a number of venues have a problem with it. They are the much larger venues where a number of people are the premises licensees.
The issue that I have is that there is no evidence. The noble Viscount's point about the number of fines was probably rhetorical, but I believe that there are few cases. I am interested to know whether the Home Office is pushing it. Where did "two strikes and you're
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Of course, most premises would not go out of their way to sell alcohol to those who are under 18 but the under-18s will try extremely hard to buy alcohol. I remember that I was never refused a drink from the age of 15 onwards. I went to many pubs and would have caused landlords a lot of problems. Obviously, with the PASS scheme it is easier for publicans and licensees to deal with this. But it is unfair on the organisations which, by the time they receive warning notices, have implemented procedures to retrain their staff, and which will then receive a second penalty before they have introduced all the measures. They will be shut down and there is an enormous amount of time, effort and cost to the pubs, especially in this economic crisis, to sort it out. The present system of three strikes has not really been questioned, and it is strange that this should turn up in the legislation.
Lord West of Spithead: The Government are clear that selling alcohol to young people is unacceptable, which is the view in the Chamber. I am pleased to say that that view is also shared by the majority of those who sell alcohol and their representatives. It is rather nice for the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, to own his own pub with his own name; it is a splendid thing to do.
I hope that I can explain why I believe this is important and that the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, will give me more marks than the other place in achieving that. I will have a go. It is clear from the targeted enforcement campaigns that we ran that a number of retailers still sell to under-18s, which has to stop. It is not all just errors. In the summer of 2007 the Home Office ran its Tackling Underage Sales Of Alcohol Campaign-TUSAC-which targeted more than 2,500 premises nationally to ascertain the extent of underage sales and how frequently they were made over a three-month period.
The premises targeted as part of this campaign had already been identified as problem premises, and the results showed that 40 per cent of the premises targeted failed on at least one occasion, 8 per cent failed twice and 1 per cent failed three times. Despite being told when it started that they were being targeted for underage sales, 8 per cent still failed twice in that three-month period.
The Government are committed to targeting a minority of businesses that sell alcohol illegally. Even though those premises were targeted on the basis of local intelligence, we felt that the failure rates were unacceptable. If young people know that certain shops will sell them alcohol, they will take advantage, and it is possible that when under the influence of alcohol, as we all know, these young people will be involved in anti-social behaviour, possibly crime and they can cause themselves harm.
Lord Redesdale: Does the Minister have a breakdown of the figures between the on-licence trade and the off-licence trade? Pubs and clubs being mixed in with off-licences might give a completely different view of the figures.
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Lord West of Spithead: I do not have the figure at my fingertips. Unless the Box can provide it shortly I shall write to the noble Lord, but I will cover it if the information comes before the end of the debate.
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