Weights and Measures (Specified Quantities) (Unwrapped Bread and Intoxicating Liquor) Order 2011

My Lords, of course I will not oppose these measures, but I have significant reservations as to whether they represent the real world. Leaving aside the provisions on bread, which I of course fully support, I am concerned that the consultation exercise seems to have involved organisations relating to wine, beer and spirits rather than relating to what happens in the real world in wine bars and pubs. Until I read all this material, I had not appreciated—of course, I should have done—that there was any restriction on what a publican could sell. I had assumed that the fact that you ordered either a half or a pint of beer was simply tradition, because that is the way that it had always happened. I had not realised that it was a mandatory requirement. Of course, in the real world of pubs, they vary. In many village pubs when your pint of beer goes down to a quarter and you ask for a half they will pull the pump so many times you almost end up with another pint. The fact that they have charged you only for a half is not material to the measure that you have actually been served. As far as wine is concerned, at the moment as I understand it, you can have only a small or a large glass if you go into a pub or wine bar. Those are the required measures, but there is nothing to stop six of you ordering a bottle of wine and serving it to yourselves in whatever proportions you want; and if you want more, you have another bottle of wine. I find the regulation of this rather strange and not necessarily representative of what actually happens in the pubs and wine bars of our country—those that remain open. Had I started with a clean piece of legislation, I would have gone for option two and deregulated the whole lot, but I recognise that the consultation makes that rather difficult. I also wonder whether there has been proper consultation with the people at the sharp end. Will those who run my local village pub have to spend a fortune buying two-third pint glasses which they do not have? If so, are they in favour of this, or would they rather stay with the existing requirements? I would have assumed that, were the Tory element of our Government—and, I suspect, the Liberal Democrat element too—starting from scratch, they would think you should simply say, ““Here are the products we sell, whether it is two pints, one pint, three-quarters of a pint, two-thirds of a pint, half a pint and here is the price,”” rather than saying, ““You cannot sell anything unless it is one pint, half a pint or two-thirds of a pint.”” So I have reservations about the order, as I have expressed, but of course I am not going to oppose it.