Licensing Act 2003

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We need to work with magistrates to ensure that if the application is for a conversion and there has been no objection, it should be possible, if it is not processed within two months, to fast-track it through the magistrates courts. I do not know whether we can take up the point that my hon. Friend made in relation to conversions, but I shall certainly look at it and write to her. As I said, the new Act sweeps away anomalies and ends the need for people to go to the magistrate every time that they want to put on an event. Consequently, the amount of forms processed will be greatly reduced from 16 million a year to 2 million per year. The number of hearings will go down from 2.4 million a year to 80,000. There will be great savings of about £1.5 billion in lawyers’ fees, so it is not surprising that the lawyer whom the right hon. Member for Maidenhead cited was not happy.