Licensing Act 2003 (Her Majesty The Queen’s Birthday Licensing Hours) Order 2016

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

12:21

Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 12 April be approved.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, the order makes provision for the relaxation of licensing hours in England and Wales for the weekend of Her Majesty the Queen’s official birthday celebrations in June.

Section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003 allows the Secretary of State to make a licensing hours order to allow licensed premises to open for specified, extended hours on occasions of exceptional international, national or local significance. Licensing hours have previously been extended for the Royal Wedding in 2011 and the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, as well as for the World Cup in 2014.

As noble Lords will be aware, this year Her Majesty the Queen is celebrating her 90th birthday. The Government consider this a nationally significant event, and many people will wish to celebrate the occasion. The Government are proposing to allow premises to remain open later on the weekend of Her Majesty’s official birthday in June. The order will allow licensed premises to extend their opening hours on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 June until 1 am on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 June respectively. It will apply to premises’ licences and club premises’ certificates in England and Wales which license the sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises. These premises will be allowed to remain open without having to notify the licensing authority and police via a temporary event notice, as would usually be the case. Premises that sell alcohol for consumption off the premises, such as off-licences and supermarkets, are not covered by the order.

The Licensing Act 2003 requires the Secretary of State to consult persons she considers appropriate before making a licensing hours order. The Home Office conducted a consultation with key partners, including representatives of licensing authorities, the police, police and crime commissioners, residents’ groups, the licensed trade and the Welsh Government. The consultation asked three questions. First, do you agree that the order should apply to the sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises? Secondly, do you agree that the order should apply to England and Wales? Thirdly, do you agree that the order should extend licensing hours until 1 am?

The responses were almost entirely positive. There are, of course, some risks associated with extending licensing hours. The national policing lead for alcohol agreed with the proposed order, but highlighted that the weekend coincides with Euro 2016 football matches, when there will be an increased risk of alcohol- related disorder.

The police and crime commissioners’ working group on alcohol raised concerns that a blanket extension to licensing hours may prove disruptive to planning police resources. It considered the system of temporary event notices a more appropriate means for licensed premises to extend their licensing hours as it provides the police and licensing authorities with a means to screen out unsuitable premises and plan for any additional policing requirements. The Government carefully considered these concerns. The Government are unaware of any reports of increased crime or disorder during previous occasions when licensing hours have been extended in this manner. Licensing hours were extended during the 2014 World Cup for a similar period and there were no reports of increased disorder as a result. This order has similar terms to the equivalent orders relating to the celebrations for Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Royal Wedding. The relaxation is for a limited period and we believe this is appropriate to celebrate an occasion of this sort.

The Government are committed to reducing burdens on business and public bodies where possible. This licensing hours order will reduce the burden on businesses, which would otherwise need to use a temporary event notice to extend their opening hours, at a cost of £21. It will also reduce the burden on the licensing authorities that would have to process the notices. I hope noble Lords will agree that the licensing hours order is an appropriate use of the powers conferred on the Home Secretary by the Licensing Act 2003. I commend the order to the House.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation of the purpose of the order, which we support. I had better indicate that right at the beginning, since the Minister may get the impression from some of the points I want to raise that perhaps we do not support the order—so I say from the start that we do.

The Explanatory Memorandum refers to the outcome of the consultation on the order. It states that all the “partner agencies” that were consulted replied in the affirmative to the three questions being asked, with the exception of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. It seems that the APCC considered the order,

“disruptive to planning police resources”,

and felt that it posed an,

“increased risk of alcohol-related disorder”.

I have to say that its concerns are immediately swatted aside in the Explanatory Memorandum in one sentence:

“However, the Government is not aware of any evidence of alcohol-related disorder during periods covered by previous Licensing Hours Orders”.

It is interesting that there is no impact assessment to address this point and that related to police resources, among others. It is also interesting that the organisation whose concerns have been, frankly, so abruptly dismissed by the Government in the Explanatory Memorandum is the one that represents and speaks on behalf of the elected police and crime commissioners, whom the Government created to increase public accountability of the police and to ensure that, through them, public concerns could be reflected and addressed. The Explanatory Memorandum suggests that, if the elected, accountable police and crime commissioners—who should know what the impact of the order may be in their own areas better than the Government—express concerns that are contrary to the Government’s stance, their concerns will carry little weight.

Perhaps the Minister could comment on that and, in the absence of an impact assessment, perhaps he could at least expand on the statement in the Explanatory Memorandum—which I quote again—that,

“the Government is not aware of any evidence of alcohol-related disorder during periods covered by previous Licensing Hours Orders”.

Does that sentence mean that in the additional hours covered by previous licensing hours orders there were no incidents at all throughout the country of alcohol-related disorder? If that is the case, frankly, that is unbelievable. Or is it meant to mean that the total number of incidents of alcohol-related disorder on the nights when there were extended hours under previous orders was no greater in total than the number of such incidents on a normal night without extended hours?

12:30

I note that when the Minister introduced the order, he did not say what it says in the Explanatory Memorandum. I think he said that the Government are not aware of any evidence of increased alcohol-related disorder but that is not what it says in the Explanatory Memorandum. Perhaps he could clarify which is correct.

I think these are relevant questions. When the Government say they are not aware of any evidence of alcohol-related disorder during periods covered by previous licensing hours orders, does that mean that the Government or a previous Government actively sought information on this point after the event or does it mean simply that Governments have never sought such information and no one has come forward to tell them there had been a problem of alcohol-related disorder during periods covered by previous licensing hours orders?

The Explanatory Memorandum also has some paragraphs on the impact of the order but, as I said, no impact assessment. The memorandum states:

“The impact on the public sector may comprise additional policing costs”.

Can the Minister say why “may” has been used rather than “will”? Is there evidence from experience of previous similar orders—for example, in 2011 and 2012—that no additional police costs were incurred through extended opening hours? If so, what is that evidence? If additional police costs were incurred under previous orders, do the Government have a figure for those additional costs? I ask that in the light of the concerns expressed by the APCC about the impact of the order on police resources, which, after all, have been cut over the past few years. I also understand that at least one of the home nations has an international football match on 11 June, one of the days covered by the order for extended opening hours, which will not make the resource situation any easier. Having said only that there may be additional policing costs, the Explanatory Memorandum then states:

“The Government would expect forces to meet these costs from within their existing budgets”.

Can the Minister confirm that this has always been the practice under previous similar orders; namely, that additional costs are found from within existing budgets?

The order permits licensed premises to open for two additional hours, beginning at 11 pm, on both 10 and 11 June without the need to obtain a temporary event notice or pay the fee for such a notice. Based on what has happened on previous occasions, do the Government have any figures on the percentage of premises already licensed to sell alcohol that are likely to take advantage of the order and remain open for up to two hours beyond 11 pm? If such premises intend to remain open later to sell alcohol under the terms of the order, will they have to advise the local police force of that fact? I may be wrong but I thought I heard the Minister say in his introductory remarks that they would not.

I hope that our support of the order will not result in a less than full response being given by the Government to the points I have raised. Of course, we are all looking forward to Her Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday and we all hope that the order will contribute in a responsible way to Her Majesty’s birthday being appropriately marked by national celebration.

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I must declare an interest in that I own a pub: the Redesdale Arms, on the A68 in Northumberland. It is a particularly fine establishment that serves excellent beer and wine. We will obviously be opening late on the Queen’s Birthday, and I do not see that event being the subject of a massive punch-up. I cannot see it being anything other than a quiet or celebratory event.

I find it interesting that the question of extra resources has been raised. I was on the Front Bench during the passage of the 2003 Act, which the then Labour Government introduced to extend licensing hours and liberalise the licensing regime. It seems to go against that now to say that extra costs will be involved. We on this Bench support this order. However, I think that the 2003 Act was extremely regulatory in nature. The whole area of event notices has introduced enormous extra costs, with many live music venues shutting down as a result.

We had one victory during the passage of the 2003 Act. I had tabled four amendments against the Government to ensure that unamplified live music should not have to be licensed, as I thought that such activity was a human right. The Government responded by saying that morris dancing would be exempt from the legislation. That was obviously a massive step forward and I thanked the Government for it—in fact, 600 morris dancers danced in Trafalgar Square that November in celebration of it. We support the order, but I wonder whether it is not time to review the provisions of the 2003 Act, not to increase regulation but to try to decrease its burden on publicans, especially in the area of live music.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I noticed the anxiety of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, not to appear as a killjoy, albeit his attempts were somewhat tempered by subsequent observations. I am sure that, like those in another place, we will all welcome the opportunity to celebrate Her Majesty’s 90th birthday in June of this year and the proposals put forward in this order.

Perhaps I may address the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in this context. It will be noted, as the noble Lord did note, that there was a consultation on this matter. The Government’s intention was that that should be a proportionate consultation. It included the national policing lead for alcohol, who came out in favour of the proposal for the extension of licensing hours. It was therefore necessary to balance the views of all the parties that we had consulted. The purpose of having a consultation is to get diverse views and to balance them before arriving at an informed conclusion. That is precisely what the Government did in this case.

There was no question of swatting aside observations. There was no question of abruptly dismissing the representations made by any party that responded to the consultation. An informed decision was made in the light of the responses to the consultation. In that context, regard was had to past experience, which is a guide in these circumstances. Past experience indicated that there was no general extent of disorder greater than that found where such an extension had not been granted. That was based on our experience on the two or three previous occasions where such an order had been granted.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether we had actively sought representations about previous reports of problems. We actively engaged in a consultation process with parties which would have been informed of these matters and would have brought them to our attention had they thought it appropriate. I emphasise again that those parties included the national policing lead for alcohol. So, in that context, it did not appear that there would be, or had been in the past, a major impact from such an extension of licensing hours that would require material increases in the police response to it. It is in this context that we say that while there may be some additional policing costs, there is no evidence of any material increase in costs that would impact upon existing police budgets. In these circumstances, we consider that the approach taken was entirely appropriate.

I am not in a position to give figures for the number of premises that will respond to the opportunity to open, because it will be a matter for each individual set of premises to decide whether or not it is going to take advantage of this in order to allow its local community to engage in a responsible social and celebratory occasion in respect of Her Majesty’s birthday. Some may not, but nevertheless it is appropriate that the opportunity should be given to all.

In these circumstances, I suggest that there is no need to carry out any further impact assessment. On that final point, I note that on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, the assessment was that there would be a saving to business of between £240,000 and £480,000 as a result of parties not having to pay the fee for a temporary event notice. In addition to that, there is the burden on local licensing authorities of having to process each and every one of those individual applications.

With respect to the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, the Government are committed to reducing burdens on business wherever possible, as has been shown in the legislation we have taken forward in the Government. However, there are no present plans to review the 2003 Act.

Motion agreed.