Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I shall speak to all the amendments in this group, other than Amendments 240V and 240X, and also touch briefly on clause stand part. I nevertheless support Amendments 240V and 240X, which seem extremely sensible. All my amendments in the group are designed to mitigate Clause 120, which radically alters the impact of Sections 172A through to 172E of the Licensing Act introduced by the Crime and Security Act last year, in that they can now be imposed from midnight to 6 am instead of from 3 am to 6 am, and on the say-so of the licensing authority, not the full council as before. First, I take Amendments 240PA and 240PB, which are designed to remove private members’ clubs from the scope of the clause. The proposed amendments to the Licensing Act 2003 in the Bill—the late-night levy and the early morning alcohol restriction orders—are designed to tackle issues relating to licensed premises, largely on the high street, that sell alcohol for consumption on the premises to members of the public. In contrast, private members’ clubs are not selling to members of the public but are membership-based. They also, by and large, are not positioned on the high street or close to centres of the night-time economy, because their original remit, which has not changed, was to serve and be at the centre of the community in which they were located. They not only provide a valuable service to their members but have responsibility for the conduct of their members in the community. They have a self-regulatory process, which enables censure by the committee of individual members' conduct. On the basis that there is self-regulation and the recognition that private members’ clubs do not contribute to the issues which have prompted the proposed provisions of the levy and restriction orders, the clubs should be exempt from the measures. Not only are they particularly onerous in the extra revenue that will be required to pay for the levy, which we will deal with later, the loss of facilities after midnight under the early morning restriction order provisions will further curtail the revenue stream which is critical for their survival. The membership of clubs is reducing and revenues are decreasing. DCMS statistics show that, as well as all the pubs that have closed, the net reduction in clubs operating with a club premises certificate has reduced by 300 per year from 2008 to 2010. Younger members of the community in which the private members’ club thrived now have a much wider choice of venues, which are on the high street, and have other interests which do not include the traditional club environment. Nevertheless, those clubs and their facilities continue to be important, and we should protect them against changes which will have a significantly detrimental effect on their survival. Moving on to Amendments 240Q to 240W, Amendment 240Q makes a modest proposal of a 1 am start time for EMROs, rather than midnight. Midnight is far too early in the circumstances and out of step with today's customer expectations. Frankly, putting the beginning of the EMRO at midnight could be a business-killer for many businesses. Amendment 240R removes the restriction on temporary event notices which an EMRO would impose. Amendment 240T provides for personal licence holders to be included in the definition of affected person. A number of pub companies and breweries hold the premises licences for the premises they own and rent or lease out as individual businesses. While all tenants and lessees will be personal licence holders, they will not necessarily be premise licence holders and would therefore be excluded from the local consultation process under the current provisions. This amendment ensures that they will have a voice in any local consultation on the introduction of an EMRO. Amendment 240W would ensure that the imposition of early morning restriction orders does not apply to New Year’s Eve and thus undermine the opportunity for celebration in those areas where they do exist. Turning to Amendments 240RA and 240RB, there is no mechanism currently for a review to determine whether EMROs remain necessary or appropriate. If EMROs are to provide an opportunity to redress the problems that have arisen, such an opportunity will be lost if they are applied without limit. Without such a provision there will be no incentive for local authorities to undertake a review of an order or to determine whether it is still required. Businesses that suffer loss of income and value as a result of an EMRO, through, as it is admitted, no fault of their own, will be deprived of the opportunity to revisit the circumstances surrounding the placing of an order and will suffer permanent damage as a result. Two years is a reasonable timeframe within which councils, police and the hospitality trade and others can work together to address the fundamental problems that have led to the imposition of an EMRO. EMROs will impose significant burdens on those businesses upon which they fall and it must be right for those businesses to be able to see an end to the restriction through the need to reapply after two years for a further EMRO which would have to be re-justified. As it stands, there is no incentive for a council to lift an EMRO once it is in place, given that the council will have to repeat the procedures contained under proposed new Sections 172A and 172B. This amendment ensures that the council cannot simply leave an EMRO in place without reconsideration of the need. Moving on to proposed new Section 172C, trading hours that have been granted form part of the intrinsic value of a business and the permanent removal of later opening could damage the long-term value of a business. Were licences to be changed to reflect the removal of those hours, they could only be restored by a reapplication at the termination of the EMRO, when there would be no guarantee of the permissions previously granted. At the same time, conditions may have been placed on those businesses which reflect the later opening hours employed by them. A restriction of those hours would very likely change the nature of that business such that the conditions would no longer be necessary or appropriate. Given that those businesses could already have suffered a significant loss of business and shed employment as a result, a further burden of conditions that relate to the later opening could impose further costs on a business that might already be struggling. These amendments give effect to the suspension of such conditions. I appreciate that such conditions will not always be readily identifiable as they might be more related to the nature of the business rather than specifically attached to the later hours. A nightclub that has had its hours restricted to midnight might need to reconstruct its business since the closing time makes it unattractive as a nightclub. In such cases the condition for door staff might be dispensed with or reduced without any detriment to the licensing objectives, while allowing the business to reduce part of its costs. The need for the legislation to take account of the cost burdens imposed on the businesses that are affected, through no particular fault of their own necessarily, reflects the potentially unfair and untargeted nature of the proposed measures. I am not going to steal the thunder of the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, on clause stand part, but the number of amendments I have tabled regarding this particular clause demonstrates the very difficult nature of not only the current amendments but also the original legislation contained in proposed new Section 172A onwards. The ministerial forward and the Government’s response to the consultation on the Bill recognise and acknowledge that the majority of premises are well run businesses. The Minister has stated that the measures to be introduced have been designed to be used flexibly by licensing authorities to avoid penalising the majority of premises who sell alcohol responsibly. Unfortunately, the early morning restriction orders do exactly that, in so far as businesses that have applied for and been granted hours beyond midnight, until 1 am or 2 am, for example, will be penalised, through no fault of their own, if such orders are imposed, despite the fact that those businesses have not been the cause of any trouble leading to the consideration of the EMRO. They will be simply swept up in a requirement to cease trading at midnight. It is not clear that under this current clause, and indeed under the original legislation introduced last year, there will be satisfactory exemptions from EMROs. It is important that exemptions recognise best practice and social responsibility initiatives rather than being based solely on premises type. This would ensure that well run businesses that would not qualify for an exemption according to premises type are not unduly penalised by the provisions. Rather than introducing such a blanket measure, which itself risks large numbers of customers coming out on to the streets at the same time, just like the bad old days, would it not be more practical to tackle the premises that are the source of any problems rather than penalising responsible premises? In terms of the flaws in the clause and in the original legislation, I very much hope that the Minister will agree to reconsider and come back with something far more satisfactory on Report.