Licensing Act 2003

We completely support and appreciate the work that is done by volunteers across the country, including in village halls. When I met ACRE representatives today, it was clear that many village halls have successfully applied for licences and that many welcome the extra flexibility that they will get, just as pubs welcome it. However, we recognise that some village halls would rather not take out a licence and would prefer us to increase the number of temporary events notices, or TENs. We do not rule that out, but it would need to be carefully considered. During the Bill’s passage through Parliament, we increased the number of TENs from five to 12. It is worth noting that that regime is extremely deregulatory. Essentially, it allows the applicant to put on an event that can last for up to 36 hours without anybody being able to object apart from the police, who can do so only on the grounds of law and order. In effect, people can run events without any closing time and with no opportunity for the local community to make representations. If we accepted the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, we would effectively have 30 of those events happening in any of our constituencies during the year, and they would not be confined to village halls—they could be in pubs or anywhere else. If we did that without properly considering the evidence, our constituents might be rightly concerned that we had gone too far in the direction of allowing flexible drinking. However, we do not rule out moving on the issue of TENs, and we are happy to look at submissions on that over the summer when we consult on regulations for the TENs regime. We will also be happy to consider whether there are particular ways in which individual categories of licensees can have the regime apply to them in a different way.