Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I added my name to the amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and also to the clause stand part. I do not intend to go through the basket of amendments that that noble Lord has moved but will confine my remarks to clause stand part and to one amendment in particular, Amendment 240Q, which relates to proposed new Section 172A(3)(a) in Clause 120(3), where it says ““begin no earlier than midnight””. This amendment and this clause are so important because it seems to me that the Government are attempting to change the policy of late-night bars and how they operate. They are in effect saying, ““We are going to make it very easy for anybody to close everything at midnight””. For operators who have a 3 am licence, it is an incredibly important part of their business, for a number of reasons. In fact, that is often the bit of the business that makes the whole operation profitable. In my experience there has been no great push from the police to bring everything forward to midnight. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, in many areas the police would prefer it to be 3 am because people start leaving from midnight onwards and there is a gradual trickle of people going home, as opposed to the ugly rush there would be at midnight, leading to all kinds of problems of disorder. At 3 am most people have gone, with a few stragglers remaining. Equally, there does not seem to be any evidence that local authorities have been pushing to bring everything back to midnight. I ask my noble friend the Minister to explain whether this really is a change of government policy by the back door, because that is what it looks like to the industry—if so, the Government should be honest and open and say what it is—or is it an attempt merely to give more powers to close down operators who are seen to be operating either out of their licence hours or breaking their licence conditions? There is no evidence so far in the industry that local authorities have any problems with operators who should be closed down. It is quite easy for local authorities to close down an operator, although there is concern about the legal costs of doing so. But most operators regard their licence as so important to their business that the last thing they want to do is jeopardise it. We need some explanation from my noble friend of what really is meant by Clause 120, as well as a satisfactory reply to deal with the concerns felt by many operators in the industry—and indeed not forgetting the poor customers.