Licensing Act

Oh, the Minister has to write to me, but he cannot cite the specific section now. That is how clear the legislation is. There has been a 5 per cent. decrease in the number of venues available for live music. There is also a very serious point to be made about our community centres, by which I mean pubs. Pubs are, as it were, the new post offices, given the threat of closure that they face. In 2006, just two pubs a week were closing but now, in 2009, 52 pubs a week are closing. I know from my own constituency that pub owners struggle to think of events that they can put on, whether it is curry nights or pub quizzes, to attract people to the pub during the week and over the weekend. Live music would be one of those attractions and surely, given the threat to something that has been at the heart of our community for centuries, we could be a little more imaginative in lightening the regulatory burden. As for pubs that have managed to secure entertainment licences, 50 per cent. of them now face onerous restrictions, and 80 per cent. of restaurants have not bothered to get a licence because of those restrictions. We therefore welcome the imminent announcement of the ninth review of the highly successful Licensing Act and we look forward to supporting the changes that we hope it will bring about by relaxing the regulation on small venues that want to have live music. There is a very serious point to be made about lightening overall regulation. It is extraordinary that sport should have escaped some of these regulations—in fact, I am delighted that it has done so. It is very odd that one can watch a live football match in a pub, with hundreds of people cheering and shouting, as they quite rightly should as England progress towards the World cup, and the pub does not need a licence for that. However, if 50 people sit down and watch a couple of people playing guitars in a pub, the pub needs a licence. The word that I have been searching for, as people might have worked out by now, is "anomaly". As the Olympics approach, it is obviously very important that we have the opportunity to provide outside venues for people to watch the Olympics, as they have done in the past with sporting events such as the European and World cups. However, as the Minister knows, I am a strong supporter of getting the cultural olympiad right. I want London and the whole country to have a fantastic party as well as enjoying excellent sport, and it is important to have a licensing regime that is flexible and easy to understand, so that we can take as much advantage as possible of the opportunity that the Olympics and the cultural olympiad will bring. I have focused my remarks mainly on live music, but there are a host of other issues that this thoroughly comprehensive Select Committee report has covered in its recommendations. As I have said, we will undertake a thorough and strategic review of the Licensing Act if we win the next election, but let me just cover some of those issues very briefly, because I know that the Minister will want the full hour and 10 minutes left for this debate to make his points about the Act, by which time he may have found the section of the Act that exempts him from prosecution. We support a national database for licensees. A personal licence-holder can have their license removed, but there is a difficulty because, when a premises licence is revoked, if the licence-holder has not had their own personal licence removed, they can simply move elsewhere and set up shop. We think that a national database would provide consistency and allow serial offenders to be tracked around the country. Personally, I am sympathetic to the controversy that form 696 has generated. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford described some clear and worrying examples of how the form has been—I cannot think of any other word for it—abused. The police must be extremely careful how they use it. I gather that the form has been amended, and that it must be reviewed in conjunction with the Home Office. I hope that our shadow home affairs team will look at that. I am also extremely sympathetic to the points made in the report about relief for sporting establishments. As I said, I am the president of Didcot Town football club, and I concur with the remarks made by the Chairman of the Select Committee: most sporting clubs rely on their bar for much-needed income. Temporary event notices are a legitimate matter for debate. The Select Committee made the fair point that stakeholders give conflicting evidence or arguments on whether to increase or decrease the number of TENs allowed, but personally, I think that a modest increase would be relatively uncontroversial. Much was made of the Licensing Act's effect on the night-time economy. The hon. Member for Teignbridge concentrated on it in his excellent speech and, as I said, the hon. Member for Selby rowed in strongly behind both Conservative and Liberal Democrat policies on the issue, which is welcome. There are myriad issues that could be considered regarding the perceived increase in alcohol-related violence at night and the concentration of bars and drinking culture in this country, but it seems to me that supermarket pricing of alcohol is a significant factor. It is pretty well known that a lot of teenagers buy cheap alcohol and do what is known as pre-loading, or drinking cheaply before going to more expensive bars and clubs. I believe that it is our policy to raise the duty on alcopops to reduce commensurately the duty on beer. As we know, the high duty on beer is another cost that must be borne by pubs struggling for existence. It is important to emphasise that we have a strong localist agenda. We support local councils having the opportunity to put together flexible licensing regimes suitable for their area. The hon. Members who have contributed to this debate are right that nobody wants to put licensing back in the hands of magistrates. Everybody recognises that, now that local authorities control licensing, we have an opportunity for local policies suitable for local residents and economies. It is vital that local authorities have the power and flexibility to introduce imaginative policies suitable for the people whom they represent.