Licensing Act 2003 (Second Appointed Day) Order 2005

My Lords, I, too, look forward to the Minister’s reply to what I thought was a forensic dismantling of the order by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor. It is a funny old world; it is about 100 years since that great Liberal, Sir Winston Churchill, accused the Conservative Party of drawing a brewer’s dray across the road of progress. Of course at that time the Conservative Benches in this House were known collectively as the ““Beerage””. Today, it is the Labour Party that is the brewer’s friend. I say at the outset that if the noble Viscount chooses to divide the House, we will certainly support him. Indeed, we regret that the Motion is not as robust at that put down in the Commons. We do so not in any way as killjoys; indeed like Falstaff and Justice Shallow I too have heard the chimes at midnight. We have been generally supportive since the mid-1980s of Parliament abandoning making moral judgments about how people spend their leisure time and their disposable income. But we also believe that there must be a limiting factor, because when one exercises one’s leisure preference, it has to be not at another’s leisure nuisance. The Licensing Act was sold to us on the rosy prospectus of bringing the continental café society to Britain—I remember the debates when the Minister talked about that. Just today I received the notice for the meeting on Wednesday of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Local Environmental Quality, which will be meeting to discuss the night-time economy. Here is the point for discussion:"““The local environmental quality and anti-social behaviour issues arising from the night time economy include the following: litter; flyposting; vandalism; noise; urine; vomit; commercial waste and fear of crime and violence . . . The above issues can be said to be a result of a number of key underlying causes, including the following””." The agenda goes on to list changes in the licensing law; the cultural change of binge drinking; the lack of transport late at night and the lack of toilet facilities. One local chief executive said to me that it is extremely strange that on the one hand we provide the facilities for people to fill themselves full of beer and then we close down the toilets where they could relieve themselves instead of in people’s doorways. As the all-party group agenda points out, this clearly needs further thought and study. As the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, rightly said, right at the heart of the absurdity the promise about local power is being countermanded by the fact that objectors are being made subject to cost, threats are being made, and there is the absurd limitation on councillor power. I gave a stern warning about the dangers of this Bill on Second Reading. I said:"““I am not sure that simply changing the hours will alter what is a peculiarly English attitude to alcohol consumption””.—[Official Report, 26/11/02; col. 673.]" I stand by that today. My noble friend Lord Avebury further warned that:"““Large extra human and financial costs will be imposed on society and will make life intolerable for thousands of people””.—[Official Report, 26/11/02; col. 683.]" I am glad that he is here to say ““I told you so””. He could put a 10 or perhaps even a 100 in front of that ““thousands”” today. He stated that the assumption that allowing people to drink all night will reduce the level of alcohol abuse and of crime and disorder was ““manifestly untenable””. We warned before, and we are warning again. One of the biggest problems, as the noble Viscount pointed out, is that British teenagers are among the biggest drinkers in Europe. The latest government figures show that 44 per cent of 18 to 24 year-olds binge drink at least once a month. Even more alarming are the social and economic costs of that binge drinking. When the Lords considered the Licensing Act in 2003, many Peers gave graphic accounts of the escalating violence and social disorder on the streets of towns and cities across the UK due to binge drinking. Two years later, the situation has got even worse. In the last year, there has been a 15 per cent national rise in violent offences committed in connection with licensed premises. There are serious health consequences too. Around one in 13 of the UK adult population is dependent on alcohol, and in England and Wales there was an increase by 18.4 per cent in alcohol-related deaths in 2004. One need only look at the international situation to see that the Government are taking us in the wrong direction. Longer licensing hours in Western Australia, Iceland, Ireland and Canada have increased both consumption and the violence and drunkenness that it leads to. There is also good evidence to show that reducing availability and drinking hours can help to tackle binge drinking, which has happened in Norway, Finland and Sweden. Another of the Government’s main justifications for the new licensing law was to vary closing hours and curb drunken violence on the streets at weekends. However, in a British Beer and Pub Association poll, 90 per cent of its 30,000 members had only applied for an extra one or two hours’ opening time, with the majority applying to close at midnight. Figures like those suggest that midnight will become the new chucking-out time. Closing times will be deferred as opposed to staggered, and we will have a situation where, as Chris Allison, lead officer on licensing at the Association of Chief Police Officers has warned:"““People will have drunk more and are more likely to get into fights””." It is not just from these Benches and the Conservative Benches that doubts are now coming forth. Judges, health experts, the licensing industry and many local authorities are giving similar warnings. The Government’s licensing reforms have been called ““an absolute cock-up”” and the major pub companies are accused of being concerned more with profits than with social responsibility. The Royal College of Physicians said that there was already an ““epidemic”” of binge drinking and that the Licensing Act,"““flies in the face of common sense””." What do the general public think? A BBC poll earlier this year said that 67 per cent of people thought that the Licensing Act would increase trouble, with 62 per cent saying it would make Britain a worse place to live. It is obvious that there is serious concern about these proposals. As the noble Viscount has pointed out, the police already have considerable powers, which they do not often use. The ““new”” police powers do little but replicate those existing and rarely-used powers. That is why on these Benches we join the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in saying to the Government that there is a need for a pause before we take this step. Some flexibility needs to be brought in if we are not to reach the disaster that people are predicting. Indeed, one would say that almost before the Act is implemented there is a need for review and revision. It is not a crime for Government or Parliament to say, ““We may have got this wrong—let’s think again””. Surely there is a case for that, and we urge the Government so to do.