I shall speak also to Amendments 71 to 75 to Schedule 16 to the Bill which are tabled in my name.
I first raised my opposition to this part of the Bill in the debate on the Queen’s Speech back in May. I raised a number of questions about it after having carefully followed what had been happening in the debates on the legislation in the Lords. I did the same at Second Reading on 7 July, and I did not have any satisfactory response to some of the questions I put to the Government. I was told that later regulations, when they come after the Bill becomes law, will address many of the questions that I was raising.
At the end of July, in response to a very welcome invitation from the Minister, I asked to see officials to see whether I could follow through some of the questions which I had been posing. Last Friday at 4.30 pm, I had a response from officials inviting me to have discussions prior to today’s Committee. My diary was full this week—I have just spent two days in Brussels—and there was no way that I could do that, so I am none too happy about the way this has been handled and the time that has been taken. While I might be in a minority on this issue in pursuing the topic, I believe I am entitled to get proper service so far as possible from the Government.
I will put a series of questions, some of which I have I have posed previously, and I hope the Minister will be in a position to answer them this afternoon or will address them before Report. I underline that this part of the Bill is not deregulatory at all. It is new legislation. The Minister just used the phrase “limited changes”, but I believe that the limited changes could be more significant than he believes. Therefore, if we are, in effect, dealing with new legislation, we should have the maximum information before us at the time that the legislation is going through rather than having to wait for regulations later down the line after further consultation has taken place.
This is a serious issue. It may appear quite minor, but I think it is serious and I hope the Government will now give some serious attention to the points I shall make. In fairness to them, they endeavoured to do the best they could with the problems we face with alcohol when they produced their alcohol strategy in 2012. I was one of those on this side of the Room who welcomed it very strongly indeed because I believed they identified the core of the problems which the country faces with alcohol and its abuse: first, the cheapness of drink, and secondly, easy and proliferating access to it in so many places.
Regrettably, on pricing, the Government abandoned the very strong stance they had taken—the Prime Minister had personally taken a very strong position on it—and opted for a change that will make next to no difference. As my noble friend Lady Smith indicated, it will change consumption by one glass of alcohol per
drinker per year, which will make no difference whatever to alcohol abuse. I have therefore tabled Amendments 73 and 75 to remind the Government of where they started and where they have now ended. I have not got a great deal of hope that I am going to get far down the road with those amendments, but they ought to be on the record. While I have proposed 50p per unit, the latest evidence, which comes from the University of Sheffield, which is the leader in this area, indicates that it should now be 65p per unit.
4.15 pm
While I acknowledge that the Government have legislated to tighten up local alcohol licensing laws, as referred to in earlier debates, there is still a major omission in their not introducing an additional statutory criterion for local public health to be taken into account. Many bodies, particularly health bodies, are calling for this change—many of them being the Government’s own bodies. Public Health England is now on record as stating that there is a need for public health to be taken into account in licensing. Those bodies are joined by many local authorities around the country, which have backed a Private Member’s Bill that I am trying to get through. There is not much chance of it being heard, but it is good to know that I am representing a substantial body of interests around the country. In addition, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have either adopted the additional public health criterion test, or are in the process of so doing. Momentum is gathering for this change to be introduced. It behoves the Government to look at it again. That is why I have tabled my amendments.
I hope noble Lords will note that I am not speaking to anything new or radical. I may in due course move my amendments; they will be nothing more or less than what the Government set out in their own strategy as the appropriate means to address the problem. That strategy was drawn up in 2012. I am sure that the Minister will point out that there was a commitment in that strategy to introduce the freedom to sell alcohol at community events. It might seem churlish that I am paddling this long canoe opposing that change; in due course I will seek to strike it out. However, I am baffled to understand why WI or church events need licences that will start at 7 am. Unless the church is now contemplating selling alcohol at early morning mass, I do not see why these licences should start so early in the day.
I am interested to see how Governments will enforce the stipulation in Clause 52 that selling will be limited to three units of alcohol per customer per 24-hour period. Can that really be enforced? Is making such a statement really worth while? Amendments 72 and 74, which are self-explanatory, endeavour to establish just how responsible the sellers handling this will have to be.
My principal objection to Clause 52 is the way that requests for more freedom to sell alcohol at events, which originally came from community activists such as the WI, have moved into a much wider front—into the business community and wider society—with its extension to so-called ancillary licences, with a new licensing regime attached. The Government have instanced
that this would be used with bed and breakfasts. Again, I am amazed that they have licenses to sell alcohol starting at 7 am. We go back to one of the debates we had earlier on problems arising for Airbnb with changes to bed and breakfasts’ terms. Presumably this will equally apply to that site. It would be amazing to know how anyone could possibly police the application of those changes within the limits that the Government think the selling of alcohol should take place.
I said that we could see quite a cultural change coming from this, not so much in community events but in the way it will extend in business. I mentioned that I believe that hairdressers would wish to take ancillary licences, as well as tanning shops and nail boutiques and even sandwich bars. As I understand it, they would have the freedom to start selling alcohol, admittedly on a limited scale. The Government said that this will not happen, but so far there have been no consultations to indicate whether or not it will. Unless I have got this complete wrong, the Government are moving in a direction that will extend the sale of alcohol over a much wider area than we have had hitherto. I will be very happy to hear the Minister say what work he is doing to make certain that there will be some clear limitations on the extent to which these changes will be applied throughout the community, because, if there are not, the abuse of alcohol or the sale of alcohol, which is what the Government have been seeking to limit in their alcohol strategy, will go in precisely the opposite direction.