Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Harris of Haringey

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey [V]]

My Lords, this is a slightly strange group of amendments. We have talked about microbreweries and so on, but most of the debate has focused on Amendment 52 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. I support what has been said on it. Of course there is no industry standard yet for digital ID; the whole process has been very slow. However, as a number of noble Lords have commented, security technology has been moving very rapidly and there is no doubt that this could be delivered without any great difficulty.

The reality at the moment is that, when young people go out to pubs or bars for an evening of entertainment, they have to take a physical card with them; often, it is a passport or a driving licence. In the nature of things, those physical documents get lost, which brings extra costs and security issues that we should all be wary of. However, people’s ability to safeguard their mobile phone is always very high.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, gave us probably more detail than any of us ever wanted to know about this particular topic and the standards being adopted and agreed. However, I think that the approach taken by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara is the way forward, and I hope that the Minister can agree something this evening.

I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. She was clearly concerned that if this amendment were to pass tonight, it would somehow favour one or other of the current developers of the technology for digital age verification. However, if you listen to her speech, you will find that she seemed to be defending the right of PASS—a scheme which she chairs, and which has done noble service to age verification over the years—to continue as is for several more months.

I hope that when the Minister looks at this, she can find a way forward along the lines of Amendment 52, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe.

[Baroness Pinnock [V]]

[Inaudible.]—and related amendments, including one tabled by my noble friend Lord Addington that seeks to give sports clubs, which often rely on bar takings, the same facility as pubs and other bars to provide off-sales. An amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, seeks to achieve the same extension for small breweries. These amendments support small businesses and give essential support to community clubs, and as such we on these Benches support them both.

Another very important amendment, Amendment 52, would enable digital age verification. It is surprising that that does not already exist. A very strong case has been made for this change by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. In the light of the experience throughout this crisis of a significant shift being made across society to digital means of providing services, this proposal should surely be accepted by the Government. Perhaps the Minister will be able to indicate when that move to digital age verification will be enabled—as come it will.