Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Baroness Hamwee

Thursday 14th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I joined in the debate on these two terms at the previous stage, and on rereading Hansard I wonder now even more than I did at the time how assessing whether something is appropriate could be evidence-based. If I were still a councillor having to decide whether a condition is appropriate, I do not think I could avoid it being a subjective judgment. My noble friend has referred to this. I also asked at the last stage whether the assessment had to be reasonable. If it is “appropriate” rather than “necessary”, I assume that it would have to be, but the Minister very elegantly sidestepped that question. I do not blame her because I had not given her notice of it.

My final point refers to the statutory guidance, again just mentioned by my noble friend. We are not talking about a particular application, but licensing in general is a quasi-judicial activity. Perhaps this is not strictly quasi-judicial, but it comes quite close to it. I am concerned about the need to rely on guidance as distinct from primary legislation in the way this is approached.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the Minister will recall that I spoke on this matter in Committee. I have no intention of running the risk of prolonging the debate by repeating what I said on that occasion, but nothing that has happened since the previous stage alters in any way the views I then expressed. The only thing I would say in a wholly friendly manner to my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones is that I used the human rights argument on a series of occasions during our debates on the Licensing Bill in 2003. I have to say, in a manner which I hope he will not find too discouraging, that on every single occasion the Front Bench of the then Government shut me up and told me that I did not actually have a case to argue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I intervene extremely briefly. On the strength of my own experience in the two cities, where there is of course an enormous amount of late-night activity and in other parts of the constituency there is absolutely nothing happening at all, I would like my noble friend, to whom I was not very helpful on the last occasion, to know that on this occasion I am sympathetic to what he is saying.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have Amendment 306ZZA in this group. On the issue of the division of the levy between the police and the local authority, at the previous stage I attempted to reverse the proportions, as provided by the Bill. This time I am suggesting a 50-50 split. I am sure that my noble friend will understand how completely reasonable that must be.

At that stage, my noble friend told me as reassurance that the levy had,

“been designed to raise money for the police, who bear the brunt of late night enforcement costs”.—[Official Report, 16/6/11; col. 943.]

I do not doubt the costs borne by the police, but to some extent they are already taken into account in the way that their funding operates. I am concerned that the costs to local authorities, particularly as regards environmental health and some of the organisation involved in dealing with late-night activity, are not acknowledged.

I have brought this back not only to change the proportion but because of a thought that occurred to me after the previous stage. If an authority is to receive little financial benefit from the levy, it may take a decision not to impose it at all. I wonder whether the Government have considered that risk, if I may put it that way.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Baroness Hamwee

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a very brief gloss on the speech of my namesake, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe. Reflecting back to the debates on the Licensing Bill in 2003, I think it would be fair to say—and I hope that those who were in the Chamber at that time would agree—that the arguments against the then Bill were led very much by those who had a lot of London experience. People who have a lot of London experience endeavour to mobilise opinion through the civic trust across the country, but it took quite a long time for that communication to take place during the passage of the Bill. It would be fair to say that those away from London were disagreeably surprised by some of the consequences of the Bill when they arrived in practice. I cannot sense totally from the speeches of my noble friends Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Astor how far they are centring on London experience in their observations but I think it is necessary to realise that we are dealing with a national issue.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Baroness Hamwee

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, my understanding of the background to the change in wording brought in by the Government is a little different from that of my noble friend Lord Astor, although closer to that of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. My understanding is that it has proved to be difficult and costly for some licensing authorities to prove, on challenge in the courts by applicants, that such-and-such a condition or restriction to the licence was necessary to promote the licensing objectives. In the face of strong legal challenges by trade interests with deeper pockets than local authorities, particularly in these parlous times, some authorities have backed down. I am glad to say that Westminster City Council is a praiseworthy exception.

It is difficult for a local authority to prove that some restriction is “necessary” in advance of a licence being granted, even if on the basis of probability it would be sensible to do so. My reading is that the Government have effectively decided to reduce the burden of proof so that a licensing authority would in future have to prove only that a particular measure is appropriate to promoting the licensing objectives, as the Bill states. Members of my former constituency in Soho and Covent Garden certainly think that the Government’s proposals are sensible and should stand.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Shipley and I have not necessarily taken the same view on this part of the Bill as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. If I may put it crudely, we start from the localist rather than the business position, but I deliberately said on Second Reading that I thought that local authorities have responsibilities to businesses in the area as well as to residents. However, we are both sympathetic to these amendments—except, perhaps, for one of them.

The issue has been cast as a subjective versus objective test. Can the Minister say whether, on either or both “appropriate” or “necessary”, the term “reasonably” would be implied? That might help us to see the position as a little less polarised. My noble friend Lord Shipley, with his local government experience, reminds me that it could be difficult for the licensing authority to administer what is appropriate. That could be much more difficult to assess.

I depart from my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones on one amendment: Amendment 240P. I can see an argument for using the appropriateness test for making the new early morning alcohol restriction orders. We are talking about something a little different there, but I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I am deeply sorry if I have in any way offended the noble Lord, Lord Harris, but the fact remains that it is a late hour.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it is a late hour, but that is not anyone’s doing, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has sustained greater insults than that in his career.

I am not sure, either, what Amendment 155 is doing in this group. It was in another group. I observed that it should be in a group on London and this is where it ended up. It is one of a number of amendments that say that the London Assembly should be able to decide its own procedures and how it works as a policing and crime panel. However, we will debate that point in another group.

I have considerable sympathy with these amendments on the City of London. I am asking myself why there is a separate force and why the issue has not been brought within what seems entirely the right vehicle for addressing the matter. I can only assume that it is in the filing tray that has “too hard” written on it and that the Government are unwilling to take on the City. But it is an important issue. If we are being asked, as we are, to look at inserting democracy into the governance of our policing arrangements, the City should not be exempt from that. They have a lot of experience of elections in the City—there is no problem in carrying that out.

There are so many anomalies, with the separate precepting arrangements and what has always seemed to me unnecessary bureaucracy and complication because of the division. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, referred to expertise, and I accept that there is enormous expertise, but it is transferable and needs to be so, because whether or not the City likes it London’s financial centre is not only where it used to be. It has moved eastwards, and the expertise in fraud and other matters specific to business are no longer, in the 21st century, relevant only to the Square Mile.

This Bill is the right context for this debate. There is a considerable distinction between this issue and that of teachers’ salaries in 1944, and I am sorry that the Government have not felt able to extend the new governance arrangements to the whole of England.