As I joke sometimes with other noble Lords, I am sure that if I do not do it, my comments will be read back to me.
This is important to numerous people’s livelihoods. I will spend a minute or two on that, because it is a serious matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith, reminded us, this is about significant numbers of businesses generating significant amounts of money on which significant employment depends. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, reminded me of the work we did together. It is a really important industry, not to mention the social benefits that it brings.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, was quite right to highlight the concerns. That is why, by March 2025, there needs to be a proper unified licensing regime that identifies and deals with all this and looks at the problems that she mentioned. To start the debate, I do not think the problem is with off-sales from pubs and restaurants. Anti-social behaviour and the problem drinking associated with it usually come from off-sales from small corner shops and so on. In my experience, anti-social behaviour from young people comes from corner-shop sales. That is a sweeping generalisation—the vast majority of corner shops are well run—but the pricing and so on are issues. That is really important.
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Another thing that needs tackling—I wonder whether the Minister can say a little more about it—has been highlighted by members of the committee. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said that there is no information about what the responses to the consultation said or who was in support. So 65% were opposed and 35% were in favour—who were they? If the Local Government Association and the National Police Chiefs’ Council were part of that 35%, that is a pretty significant thing to highlight in the report. Can the Minister say a little about who responded and what the views of the police, local authorities and other significant bodies were with respect to this?
I have one other point. These regulations relate to England and Wales. In the various extensions that have happened, have any problems occurred on the England/Scotland border? For those who follow these matters, that is not an insignificant question where licensing laws differ within a small geographical space,
as we probably all know. Did any consultation take into account the Scottish local authorities along the England/Scotland border?
We do not oppose these regulations on the extension, but they raise a number of questions about how the Government introduce legislation. The shoddy way this was done undermines their case in doing something that, as the Minister can see from the Committee, has cross-party support. The country deserves better and to understand why things are being done. I hope that, in the run-up to deciding whether this third temporary extension until March 2025 becomes permanent, there will be widespread public consultation which takes into account the various views there will be. Some clarification around things such as pavement licences—what area they refer to and so on—would be welcomed by all those who work in the industry and others. With that, we will not oppose the regulations.