Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor]

My Lords, I added my name to the amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and also to the clause stand part. I do not intend to go through the basket of amendments that the noble Lord has moved but will confine my remarks to clause stand part and to one amendment in particular, Amendment 240Q, which relates to proposed new Section 172A(3)(a) in Clause 120(3), where it says “begin no earlier than midnight”.

This amendment and this clause are so important because it seems to me that the Government are attempting to change the policy of late-night bars and how they operate. They are in effect saying, “We are going to make it very easy for anybody to close everything at midnight”. For operators who have a 3 am licence, it is an incredibly important part of their business, for a number of reasons. In fact, that is often the bit of the business that makes the whole operation profitable. In my experience there has been no great push from the police to bring everything forward to midnight. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, in many areas the police would prefer it to be 3 am because people start leaving from midnight onwards and there is a gradual trickle of people going home, as opposed to the ugly rush there would be at midnight, leading to all kinds of problems of disorder. At 3 am most people have gone, with a few stragglers remaining. Equally, there does not seem to be any evidence that local authorities have been pushing to bring everything back to midnight.

I ask my noble friend the Minister to explain whether this really is a change of government policy by the back door, because that is what it looks like to the industry—if so, the Government should be honest and open and say what it is—or an attempt merely to give more powers to close down operators who are seen to be operating either out of their licence hours or breaking their licence conditions. There is no evidence so far in the industry that local authorities have any problems with operators who should be closed down. It is quite easy for local authorities to close down an operator, although there is concern about the legal costs of doing so. But most operators regard their licence as so important to their business that the last thing they want to do is jeopardise it. We need some explanation from my noble friend of what really is meant by Clause 120, as well as a satisfactory reply to deal with the concerns felt by many operators in the industry—and indeed not forgetting the poor customers.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, if the analysis of the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, regarding a change in government policy is correct, I welcome it. It is what the public want and, although some in the business sector will be unhappy about it, I think that overall this set of amendments would undermine the Government’s attempt to respond to the clamour which has increasingly grown up among the public at large and has been reflected in some of the work done in the consultation. Therefore, I hope that the Government will not backtrack and that they will dig in firmly and hold to their course on this. The public will certainly support them in that.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend—to the extent of New Year’s Eve, at any rate. I have Amendment 240V in this group, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has added his name. It would provide for permitted exemption categories and exempted days, and is part of a continued conversation about how far local variances should be reflected and the extent to which they should be centrally prescribed. Noble Lords will not be surprised that I always find myself at the local end of the spectrum.

This matter was brought to us by the Local Government Association. It seems that licensing authorities should be able to determine the categories of premises to be exempted from EMROs in their local area. This would not be novel, even in the context of the Bill, as it would mirror the late-night levy exemptions that licensing authorities can decide locally. There seems to be no logic for having different systems, particularly as I understand from the LGA that the Home Office has proposed to use the same definitions for categories of possible exempted premises for EMROs as for the late-night levy. The broader point, as I said, is local determination.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My rising is not normally greeted with that amount of drama and my observations will not in any way warrant that dramatic attention. As a footnote to what my noble friend Lord Astor said, it seems that a local authority in assessing its costs in terms of this process will have both fixed costs and marginal costs. Although I totally understand that he is arguing for marginal costs, there presumably has to be some way in which the fixed costs are recovered as well.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I do not think that the Minister needs to apologise to the House for the line that she is taking. If I could catch her attention, I would congratulate her on being very bold. Perhaps I will be accused of being a Puritan today. I will come back to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in a moment and try to prove to him that I am not. In Committee, I was invited by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, to raise questions I had raised previously about the Government’s philosophical approach to licensing and whether we are effecting a change of direction to what we have had during the past 15 years. I will not repeat them all. They are on the record and I do not suppose that at this time we have enough time to go into a philosophical discourse on it.

I hope that the Government are about a subtle change over time that will lead, one hopes, to a cultural change over time. It will not be easy, as the Minister rightly acknowledges. A good change that the Government have effected is that they are now prepared to allow local authorities at least to start recovering some of the costs that they have been incurring and have not been able to recover in recent years because of the failure on the part of government to allow them to update their recovery elements. There are some technical points and I support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord Stevenson.

As he might have anticipated, I am opposed to Amendments 240XF, 240XH and 241 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which would move us back to the status quo and not go down the route which the Government are endeavouring to traverse. I can tell the noble Lord that I would be quite happy to support Amendment 241ZZA, which seeks greater openness and transparency in the way in which local authorities are working out and charging their fees. I would hope that, in drawing up a list and in giving guidance to local authorities, we might be prepared to give them the freedom to recover the costs that they might incur in trying to retrain some of their licensing authorities on how they should deal with the thorny issue that the Minister endeavoured to tackle in our previous session on the differences between the words “appropriate” and “necessary”.

I have been in touch with the LGA and, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has said, it is unhappy about this—not for political reasons but primarily for technical reasons. There would be a problem for the panels in dealing with the change in language without being given appropriate training in order to be able to handle it, but it fears it could not meet the costs. So I hope that the Minister will give favourable consideration to adopting Amendment 241ZZA and perhaps add to the list the training costs incurred by local authorities in seeking to implement fully the changes the Government are endeavouring to introduce in the legislation relating to fees.

I try to be balanced in my approach. Overall, the direction is correct but perhaps some changes need to be made here and there. I am therefore happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in his Amendment 241ZZA.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor]

My Lords, I am extremely interested in the noble Baroness’s amendment but it addresses only half the issues. In my experience, the crimes that come about from abuse of alcohol start because there has been an abuse of drugs first. That mixture is important; it is quite rare that it is purely alcohol. In the late-night bars and clubs that I used to see, it was a combination of the two. I do not know how my noble friend the Minister is going to reply, but to ignore any treatment on the drug part of the issue would deal with only half the problem. Unless one deals with that, the noble Baroness’s initiative would be bound to fail.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I support all of the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and I shall speak particularly to those in my name.

In response to the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, without doubt there is a frequent link between drug taking, drinking, nicotine and a range of other addictions, including gambling. However, alcohol is on a quite different scale to drug taking. Even though drug taking is a big problem, we are talking about a scourge which afflicts many city centres throughout the whole of the country. I shall not repeat all the points that I made at Second Reading but, in addition to London, there are significant problems elsewhere. London is probably the worst of the lot but, in Brighton, in the order of 70 per cent of all admissions to A&E on Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol related. Some cases relate to substances, too, but primarily they are alcohol related. The chief medical officer down there, to whom I spoke last week, said that they were spending in the order of £100 million a year in the Brighton area in dealing with the problems which arise. We have to give careful consideration to the views put before us in these amendments.

Alcohol leads to problems with public disorder, drinking and driving—on which there will be amendments later—and, in particular, domestic violence. I recall particularly the Home Secretary’s statement last summer when she made it clear in a speech to the Women’s Aid conference that the Government’s ambition is nothing less than ending all forms of violence against women and girls. I see an opportunity in the amendment to address issues involving other related topics, particularly violence against women.

I declare an interest as a patron of the Everyman Trust, which endeavours to provide counselling for men—it is mainly men but there are one or two women—who are involved with violence within their families. They come to us because they want to stop being violent. They have a self-awareness of their problem but they do not how to resolve it. In debates in the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, has been involved in encouraging us to try to expand the activities of the organisation.

If we can get these amendments through I can see a further opportunity arising. If the Government were to cast their eyes over wider fronts they would see chances—particularly given their concept of the big society—to pull in a range of people to assist with those going through this monitoring scheme.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is not with us today, and I hope we can all wish him a speedy recovery so that he is back with us quickly. He knows a lot about the police work undertaken in the Thames Valley and I want to mention a model developed there, which started in High Wycombe, where there was co-operation between the police, NOMS itself, which was running the scheme, and Alcoholics Anonymous. Under the scheme, offenders who had either been sentenced, were facing imprisonment but had their imprisonment stayed or alternatively had been given community sentences were obliged, provided they were willing to participate, to attend AA meetings. They went to these meetings under guidance from NOMS and got chitties that confirmed they had attended the meeting and that they were endeavouring to work the 12-step programme, which is used in many places to secure recovery from both alcohol and drug addictions, and, indeed, other related addictions. This worked extraordinarily successfully. It was started in 2007 and the intention was that this was going to be rolled out throughout the rest of that area, and in turn perhaps used in locations in other parts of the country. Indeed, I believe there has been some experimentation with it in the London area.

AA, for those who do not know anything about it, has existed for over 60 years. It has a very strong record in helping people to recover from alcoholism and other related addictions. It has 2.5 million members in 160 countries and a reasonably high level of sobriety achieved among the participants. Most importantly, it is an organisation that provides a free service. It is entirely self-supporting and does not take a penny from any Government in any country in the world. However, along with many other voluntary organisations that I can name—like the Everyman Trust, which I just mentioned, Respect, which assists women who have problems with violence within their families and which also assists the males in those families, and also MARAC, a very well known organisation assisting women with violence—it can be linked in to these kinds of experiments if they are set up within the London area. There is a very significant opportunity here for the Government to think on a broader frame rather than simply seeing it in criminal terms.

The experiment in the Thames Valley, regrettably, has ground to a halt and has not been rolled out in other parts of NOMS or in other parts of the country. It managed to secure an award for one of the best new initiatives taken to deal with people with criminal offences linked to alcohol, but, for funding reasons, it has not been taken any further forward. I can understand in the present circumstances why there is a disinclination to start embracing other changes that may incur additional expenditure, but, balanced against that, we have to look at the costs that are incurred through abuse of alcohol over such a wide front and see whether we cannot perhaps utilise the willingness of volunteers in other organisations to help us to try to find the solution.

I suggest to the Minister, and in turn to the Home Secretary, that they give some very favourable consideration to the proposals that have been laid before the House today and that they look at some of the other activities that have been undertaken by NOMS—starting in High Wycombe and then partially rolled out—to see whether we cannot bring a number of these initiatives together. Perhaps by the time we come to Report, if the Government are willing to give favourable consideration to it, we might even look for one or two additional amendments that would pull in voluntary organisations to ensure that people embarking on sobriety stay with it and avoid the kind of problems we have had in the past.

One thing that any of us who have been involved with drink and drugs knows is that to maintain recovery and sobriety, there has to be an ongoing process. If you put people in prison, get them sober in prison and then let them out through the door, the next thing is they are back on the circuit again if they are on their own. They need support and assistance on an ongoing basis. This provides an opportunity to get different solutions to the problem on the statute book and then in turn to link in to various elements within the third sector which would jump at the chance to be working with Government in providing long-term solutions for people with these problems.

Among the reasons why the High Wycombe model did not work was that it was run entirely voluntarily within that area but such a model is not in the Bill. Getting this into the Bill is very important not just for London but for those other areas that might want to pick up and run with it. It might set a model that the Government can then utilise—a new initiative for the rest of the country.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, in welcoming this initiative, both as tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and as supported and encouraged by the Mayor of London, I look forward, if this is successful, to the Boris bins where people will go for their regular breathalyser. The initiative could be one that runs. I particularly support this initiative because, as my noble friend Lord Brooke has mentioned, of its recognition of the role that alcohol plays in crime and, especially, in domestic violence.

As an Alcohol Concern report has shown, there is already clear evidence of the link between alcohol and domestic abuse and, indeed, with child protection issues. Alcohol Concern has documented how often the criminal behaviour is repeated if the alcohol abuse is not tackled. It has many examples of its clients saying, “He only hits me when he's been drinking”—and I am afraid it is mostly a he. The response of advisers such as the alcohol support workers is, “If you knew you were going to hit the person you most loved once you have drunk, do you think you'd have that first drink?”. That is the problem—the fact that so many men continue to take that first drink shows how valuable an intervention aimed at offenders could be. The sobriety scheme could play an important role in this, although it is not enough on its own.

As my noble friend has just mentioned, alcohol referral schemes need to work alongside the sobriety scheme because people who have failed to tackle their misuse of alcohol are likely to need some assistance to work in parallel with this breath-testing. This may involve just a fairly brief intervention by experienced staff but I hope that the scheme would be allied to the provision of such help. Such help will depend on the provision of resources both by the Greater London Authority, if it happens there, and by the Government. It is deeply discouraging that the Department of Health has just cut by 100 per cent the funding of Alcohol Concern, the national agency on alcohol misuse which not only does the bulk of preventive work in this area but helps to set up and support local voluntary agencies that provide front-line services such as the Camden alcohol service agency, in which I declare an interest as a trustee.

Without Alcohol Concern and other national agencies working to ensure that help is available across London and elsewhere for such people who would enter this scheme, we risk this excellent initiative being undermined by dealing only with short-term sobriety rather than longer-term drinking problems. Nevertheless, I warmly welcome this initiative and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on introducing it. I look forward to seeing such a pilot, albeit one that I hope is supported with treatment for those who have failed to manage their alcohol abuse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, as a baby boomer myself I will not add to the confessionals this afternoon, but I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that she was clearly a particularly well-behaved student. My recollections—though I think the expression is that if you remember the 1960s you weren’t there—were pretty similar. Despite not having known in advance that they were being grouped, I can see why Amendments 237A and 244 have been grouped. But the devil is in the detail and I prefer Amendment 244, with one rather large and glaring exception to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm of my noble friend Lord Shipley, the drafting of a public health duty for a licensing authority is fraught with difficulties. It could cover a huge range of issues, not just issues relating to local A&E and so on but to pricing, siting and marketing of alcoholic products.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Is the noble Lord aware that the Scottish Parliament has already drafted one?

[Lord Clement-Jones]

I am extremely aware of that, and for that reason I do not think that it is necessarily a practical way forward. People are drawing on that experience and also thinking that that is not the way forward. I much prefer Amendment 244, which is much more specific. Although I am not a lawyer who travels to south Wales and appears before licensing authorities—I may have been born there but I do not travel there for that purpose—you have to have something which is capable of proper interpretation and clarity. I do not believe that the broad public health duty implied in the first amendment is really the way forward. The second proposed new clause, however, is much clearer.

I want briefly to address the third part of this because I do not understand why subsection (3) is included in the new clause set out in Amendment 244. It is rather extraneous to the general message. I certainly sympathise with bodies like the Association of Convenience Stores, which says that there is no evidence that licensed forecourts are less responsible than any other type of premise. They say also that changes in the market mean that it is vital that a store has alcohol as part of its convenience offer. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, if they did not stock it, they would close. The association says that there is adequate provision in this area under Section 176 of the Licensing Act 2003, which already requires forecourts applying for licences to demonstrate that their primary use is not as a petrol forecourt. If petrol sales outweigh other sales, they will not be granted a licence. I do not see how subsection (3) can form a legitimate part of the clause. If something was brought back in a better form, it would definitely be more supportable.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to support Amendment 237A and Amendment 244, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. I will not repeat all the problems we face with regard to alcohol because we are all fully apprised of them. We know also that there is no simple solution, and in that context I look forward to the Government’s alcohol strategy, which I believe is due to be published later in the year. I hope sincerely that it is helpful and that it is not just warm words and little action, which can often happen with strategy papers. But the Government, like my noble friend Lord Soley, have recognised that two immediate and fundamental problems need to be addressed. The first, without any question whatever, is the price of alcohol, and the second is accessibility. We can all put on our rose-coloured spectacles and remember the days when pubs opened at 11 or 12 in the morning, closed at three o’clock, and reopened from five in the evening until 11 at night. Off-licences kept similar hours. In many places in Wales, pubs closed all day on Sunday. There was not the same degree of accessibility.

We are now in an entirely different world, one that since the adoption of the Licensing Act 2003 and subsequent amendments made by the former Government, has seen an escalation in the granting of licences on a wide scale right across the board. I am thinking particularly of off-licences, which have been transformed out of all recognition. We now have access to alcohol in many places, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 52 weeks of the year. Very few countries in the world are as free as we are, and we have to reflect on whether we have done the right thing.

I commend the Government, as I did at Second Reading, on the steps they are taking to try to rebalance the rights of those who are seeking to get licences and the needs of the community. Over the past decade, problems have increasingly arisen through the use of alcohol. Even though I sit on these Benches, I have no hesitation in saying that the Government are moving the right way. On pricing, there must be a question mark over the extent to which the Government have been bold. I shall leave it at that, but personally, I do not think that they have gone far enough. As time passes, others may come to the same view. On accessibility, again the Government are tightening up the rules related to the granting of licences, but from what I have seen and heard so far, I do not think that they are likely to move fast enough and far enough to deal with the problem.

I shall be a little provocative and say that I am pleased that the Government have revised the fee structure, but I would like to know why they have limited the reimbursement of fees to local authorities simply to the administrative expenditure. Originally we had the use of a licence for a particular purpose, which was limiting. Why do local authorities now not have the freedom to set the licence at a level which is appropriate to the needs of their communities, particularly the health needs of a community when facing difficult problems related to alcohol? I would be grateful for a response. I know that the question is not proper to the amendment, but it is the only place in which I think I can pose it. If we believe in localism, and I have come across substantial support for it in many areas, local licensing authorities should have the freedom to set fees for licences at a level necessary to meet the needs of the community. We increasingly see that health needs are not being met within the context of the licensing regime. Although the new clause proposed in Amendment 237A is general, I strongly support the view that it should be added to the four existing objectives which were drawn up in 2003.

There has been saturation granting of licences in some places. I live in an area of Brighton—I have talked about it previously—where within 100 yards of each other you have two supermarkets and a post office which is no longer a post office for all intents and purposes because it is piled high with alcohol. I have taken photographs of it. Next to it, you have an off-licence as well. The post office has been granted permission to open from 6 o’clock in the morning to 11 at night. The area is immediately adjacent to the most underprivileged area in Brighton—more people are unemployed there and there is more illness there, much of it alcohol and drug-related, than in any other part of the city—yet the post office is selling alcohol from six in the morning to 11 at night.

We now have 11,000 post offices left which are guaranteed to stay in business. I return to the Minister’s point about our changing culture. We shall probably see 11,000 post offices converted over the coming two or three years so that they become nearer to off-licences than post offices. That will change the culture in those areas where they exist. It is happening not just in post offices. Greengrocers are now turning over to selling alcohol in some places. A halt needs to be called. Requests have been made to the chief medical officer in Brighton to do that. The only way, as far as I can see, to tackle this is by having a close look at what is proposed in the amendment. The idea has been adopted in Scotland; we wait with interest to see how they address it. They are looking particularly at saturation, where too many licences have been granted in certain locations, and are going to try to call a halt to that. We should do the same in the rest of the UK.

The one illness that was not mentioned when we talked about the consequences of too much alcohol was diabetes. We have an epidemic of diabetes, much of it related to alcohol. A bottle or can of alcohol may show the units, but what does that convey? It does not tell you how many calories you will consume in that can or bottle of beer, or indeed within a bottle of whisky—God only knows how many calories there are in that. If the Government are to look at this in the longer term, they will have to start addressing some of those issues, because they go much broader than the rather narrow issues that we have been talking about.

I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that the amendment is very challenging and interesting. It is a test for the Government. They gave quite a sympathetic hearing to it when it was dealt with in the Commons. I felt that my side, the Labour side, perhaps for historical reasons, was a little bit soft in its handling of it, so I was pleased to hear the way in which my noble friend on the Front Bench tackled it today. If we are not going to make great progress with it, I hope that we will stiffen up our views before we reach Report on where we want policy on alcohol to go in the future. There is a lot of pressure in this House for change and legislation on drugs. I wish that as much energy was devoted to addressing the really big problem that we have: alcohol. What chance is there of regulating drugs if we cannot effectively regulate alcohol in a way that is in the best interests of the health of our community?

I commend these amendments to the Government. I give notice that it is time for some of us in Parliament to stand up more forcefully than we have in the past in taking on the mighty drinks industry. Given all the wealth that it has behind it, it is David against Goliath in many respects. I hope that I can find a David on the Government’s side.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I shall limit my contribution to Part 2 of the Bill, which deals with licensing. Given the way in which alcohol licensing policy impacts on lifestyle, health and safety, I suspect that many members of the public will have stronger feelings about the need for change on that issue than about police commissioners. I was reinforced in that view listening to the most moving maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. Access to and availability of alcohol under the licensing regime affect all because abuse is often linked directly to violence, anti-social behaviour, community disturbance and disorder. Those trends regrettably have been growing while other criminal statistics, as noble Lords have said, have been in decline. As the Minister said, in 2009-10 nearly half of all violent crime—almost a million incidents—was fuelled by alcohol. She could have gone on to say that more than a million hospital admissions in 2009-10 were again alcohol related. Regrettably, that figure continues to rise. I understand that there are around 78,000 additional cases in hospitals each year. An estimated 40 per cent of all accident and emergency attendances are alcohol related.

Yesterday, the Brighton Argus—the daily paper from the city where I live—published a major article in which the city’s principal medical officer, Dr Tom Scanlon, claimed that the impact of alcohol was costing Brighton and Hove £100 million a year. That figure includes the cost of treating people with illnesses caused by drinking excessively and of dealing with alcohol crime. He called for a tougher stance on providing alcohol licences in the city and for the low cost of alcohol to be addressed. The Government have already been turning their attention to the latter, but I am not quite sure whether he will have been pleased with what has emanated from the Government so far.

Dr Scanlon argued that the increased availability of alcohol and the rise in the number of licences now being granted were significant factors affecting Brighton and Hove overall. That applies especially to the growing number of licences being granted for off-licensed premises, in many of which cheap drink is available. In Brighton, 73 per cent of A&E attendances on Friday and Saturday evenings are substance or drink related, yet every week ever more drink licences are being granted.

Licences are going, amazingly, to places such as fish and chip shops and video hire shops. Innumerable grocery stores are now being granted licences for drink. Licences are even going to sandwich shops— Submarine applied for a licence to sell drink with its sandwiches. I have drawn the attention of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who is the Minister responsible, to the fact that, under the transferring of local post offices, they, too, are being granted alcohol licences. I have sent a photograph of a local one where the window is piled high with alcohol, even though the post office shop is immediately next to an off-licence and within 50 yards on either side are two major supermarkets selling alcohol.

I freely knowledge that some of the responsibility for those changes has its origin in the Licensing Acts 2003 and 2005. Some of us on these Benches were unhappy with what was being passed by our Government then. It cannot be denied that the earlier legislation effected a major shift, with the presumption embedded in it that all new licence applications should be approved.

I welcome the Government’s decision last autumn to review local licensing arrangements and to seek to rebalance the Licensing Acts so that there is a better balance between applicants and the needs of the local community. I welcome in general many of the changes that the Minister has outlined in Part 2, where I will be prepared to give support, but I have concerns in a number of areas and I wonder whether we may not be embarking on a further policy of nice words and of smoothing the hair but with no action to be seen.

I have two or three questions about what the Minister said in moving Second Reading. She said that there will be a lower evidential threshold; I understood her to say that it will be more difficult to get agreement that a licence should be granted. Am I correct and, if so, what will the threshold be? Will the Government define their objectives and set out how they expect people to try to attain them?

Also, to my surprise, the Minister did not mention the fact that, in the earlier reviews and exchanges, it was suggested that a public health factor could be considered by committees when deciding whether licences should be granted. The original idea was that PCTs would be imported into the process and would be exercising a judgment. In the light of what is happening on the health service front, will PCTs be used for the interim? If not, has the proposal been totally dropped? If it has not been totally dropped, who will take the position of the PCTs? To what extent will they have power to influence decisions taken locally? Will the public health factor be of sufficient weight to ensure that an application is vetoed in an area where there are already a fair number of licensed premises?

Finally, it is generally accepted that cost is an important factor in all alcohol issues. This is being addressed from a variety of standpoints and I know that a strategy is to be drawn up later in the year on the approach to alcohol. A whole range of different strands will have to be brought together, but cost is, in the opinion of many people who know something about the subject, very much at the heart of the solution.

In the Commons, an amendment was introduced only very late in the process to devolve the setting of licence fees from the centre to the local level. I would like to know why it was done so late in the exercise. Is that devolved power limited to a reimbursement of the costs incurred in considering a licence, or will true localism operate so that local authorities are given permission to set the cost of licences at whatever they consider appropriate in the best interests of the community, although that may exceed the cost of reimbursement for the bureaucratic exercise? I should be grateful if the noble Baroness could answer those questions when she winds up.

Public Disorder at NUS Rally

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I have no doubt that the head of the Metropolitan Police will heed those words. It is obviously not just the number of policemen that is important; it is how they manage the protest as well. It is clear, though, that one has less chance of being able to police it satisfactorily if the numbers are not adequate.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, the demonstrations yesterday were about tuition fees. Today we have the announcement about welfare reform. Next year we will start to see the consequences of the housing benefit changes being introduced and there will be a growing mood, as I am sure most people will agree, of dissatisfaction in many quarters. Do the Government have appropriate resources available, following on from my noble friend Lord Hunt’s question, for the appropriate intelligence research to be undertaken?

As a side issue, I draw attention to what happened in Newcastle when there was the debacle with Mr Moat. We saw that a substantial website was quickly established, with thousands of people signing up to it and supporting him, quite contrary to the view expressed on behalf of the public by the Prime Minister. We then saw a funeral that literally hundreds of people attended, contrary to what most people would have thought would happen. There is a distinct possibility, with the technology that is now available to us—we see this when surprise parties are called by teenagers and thousands of people descend on their home for a party—that in 2011 we will see a different mood entirely, with a different technology available that could lead to demonstrations of a nature that we have not previously experienced. Are we geared up for this when we face substantial cuts in the Home Office?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, as I said previously, I am confident that this is not a question of whether the numbers and resources are available for the acquisition of intelligence. The noble Lord makes a good point when he says that modern technology—mobile telephony, combined with the use of the internet—can produce situations that can change rapidly, as in the immediate run-up to a demonstration of this kind. That is clearly something that the police will need to take into account in how they use their intelligence resources with the help of other agencies, and how they plan for demonstrations. I am confident that the police have both the resources and the capability to do this.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment No. 2) Order 2010

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

I support the order and welcome debating the more permanent steps which the Government will take. They extend beyond the health issues that the Minister mentioned to matters involving the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education and so on. Drugs are such a complicated issue that they need a very thoughtful, very broad-based approach. I am happy to support the measure.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s explanation of the order and add my support for the actions which the coalition Government are taking. It is difficult to stay abreast of the technological changes in the drug field and to restrict the spread, but I was interested to hear that an attempt will be made to intervene in websites which sell these drugs. I would be extremely grateful if the Minister would keep the House informed about what happens on that front.

It was before the Minister’s time, but some of us, many years ago, were complaining about the increasing strength of cannabis—skunk—which was being advertised widely on the internet and which many of us claimed was a cause of concern to public health. At the time our advisory council saw no evidence of increasing strength in cannabis. Subsequently it changed its mind and recognised that there was an increasing problem, but I do not think that anything has really been done about the websites which are still advertising skunk and similar cannabis items for sale. In doing something about these particular drugs, would the Government be prepared, if this order is successful, to see whether similar measures could be taken against the advertising and sale of skunk and high-potency cannabis on the internet?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the House for the support which has been given to the order. A number of extremely relevant points have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, talked about the use of websites; this does concern the Government and it is a matter of public concern. It is also relevant in the terrorist context and it is a matter that we are looking at.

One of the problems with the internet, as the House will be aware, is that it is not under the unilateral control of this country; we have to get international co-operation in order to take effective action, which then involves freedom of speech legislation and so on. It is not a simple matter to take websites down—it is very important to get the co-operation of the ISPs. We are working on this on a broader front, not excluding drugs, to try to do something about websites that contain information which is clearly contrary to the public interest and which induce violence and harm in society.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee made several points with which I will try to deal. She said that she supported the order, for which I am extremely grateful, and asked a number of questions. We are taking actions very much with an eye to getting the message out to young people that these substances are harmful to them. I mentioned the FRANK line and the information available to young people on that messaging system. As I said, we have written to festival organisers to try to alert them to the fact that these substances, which are often advertised as being legal—what is more, they are not always what they are advertised as being; they may contain quite other substances—are really dangerous and will be illegal. I emphasise that we have discovered no legitimate use for this particular substance. It is designed simply to give people a high, with very great subsequent potential harm to their health.

I do not have information on whether trading standards officers have used their powers successfully. We are using the device of the temporary banning order to prevent a market for naphyrone developing in the first place so that we do not have to try to clear up a further substance which has already taken a grip on the market. This is meant to be protective and pre-emptive action to prevent greater harm occurring.

As has been spotted, effective enforcement must rightly concentrate on tackling dealers, to prevent the substance coming into the country and reaching young users. So far as we can tell, at the moment there is no great prevalence of this drug but we and our advisory council are clear that it is a very harmful substance which should not be allowed to gain a grip on the population.

I am grateful for the support the House has given the order. I am certain that it will help to ensure that the necessary controls are in place to protect the public, particularly the health of young people. We will continue to monitor trends and give the House information on how this approach is proceeding as it is a new and very necessary one in tackling synthetic drugs. We will assess the impact of the controls in the order and keep the House informed.

Biometric Passports

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

We agree that it is extraordinarily important that passports should have adequate security, and we believe that British passports with the single facial recognition biometric will achieve those standards. There are actually a number of countries other than the United Kingdom that do not have plans to introduce a second biometric.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Can the Minister say whether, over the next three years, the e-Border workforce will increase, stay the same or decrease? If it is to be decreased, what level of performance will be affected?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am unable to answer that question—I came here to talk about biometric passports—but I will write to the noble Lord.