Deregulation Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

70: Schedule 15, page 165, line 3, leave out paragraph 3

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, tourism is a vital component of the UK economy, and is predicted to be a key part of our economic recovery and of future job creation. The tourism industry is predicted to grow at an annual rate of 3.8% until 2025, which is significantly faster than the overall UK economy. The sector supports more than 3 million jobs, which is 9.6% of all UK jobs. The benefits are spread around the UK. They are driven by domestic tourism spending at places including attractions and the seaside.

The British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions represents this sector, and it helped me put together this amendment. Most of the tourism spend comes from domestic tourists on day trips, which is the demographic that visits BALPPA’s attractions. In 2012, the expenditure on overnight domestic tourism trips in Britain was valued at £24 billion, and a further £57 billion was spent by domestic tourists on day trips. Summer holidays are crucial to this, but other holidays in the warmer months with longer days are also very important. This is because takings at attractions are much better when days are longer and, of course, when the weather is more pleasant.

These times are also crucial because they are the only ones when families, who are the core part of these attractions’ business, can go away together. This period is vital, because attractions and seaside areas then have to survive the winter, when tourism falls away. Many attractions close during that time, and so their takings in the winter are nil. If the weather is bad over just one or two weeks in the summer, that can be the difference between making a profit or a loss.

In April last year, Michael Gove made a speech at a conference at which he said that he wanted to reduce summer holidays from six to four weeks. A few weeks later, on 1 July last year, the Deregulation Bill was published and included a clause enabling this. Clearly, the Department for Education would not be advocating this clause if it did not expect some schools to use it. It would cause chaos for families with children at different schools that have different holidays. Even a single group of schools changing term times in a single area would have an impact on the tourist industry. Clause 51 and Schedule 15 are of deep concern to the tourism industry.

Where similar schemes have been introduced in the US, the evidence clearly shows that moving school holidays reduces tourism spending, which is not made up elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, moving the school year to start before Labor Day—which is the first Monday in September—had a dramatic negative impact on economic development and employment, costing the Pennsylvanian economy more than $378 million annually. In South Carolina, the move was estimated to have a $180 million impact on the state, and more than $8 million was lost in tax revenues. In Texas, returning to later school start dates resulted in higher direct tourism expenditure, estimated at $251.9 million per year, and 6,635 more permanent jobs. This is despite the actual number of instructional days staying similar. Eleven US states have now seen fit to introduce laws which mandate school years because they appreciate that there are economic benefits.

Surely all the above merit some consideration in detail about what the impact of these changes would be, yet no assessment has been made. The Department for Education, in advocating Clause 51 and Schedule 15, has singularly failed to engage with the tourism industry which feels strongly about this. The DCMS has admitted that there has been no evaluation of the policy’s impact on tourism. On 30 October, Kate Green MP asked,

“the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of deregulating school holidays on (a) tourism jobs in seaside areas and (b) seaside economies”.

Mrs Helen Grant replied:

“There has been no specific assessment of the impact the Government’s proposals in the Deregulation Bill will have on tourism jobs. However, impact assessments have been completed on the overall impact of proposals within the Bill. Government is confident that tourism jobs and seaside economies will not be adversely affected overall. Whilst the measures will extend an existing flexibility to a greater number of schools, this does not mean that all schools will change their term dates. This Government believes that decisions about term dates are best made locally. The Department for Education is working with the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions and others to ensure the Department’s advice to schools on their new freedoms is clear that term dates should be set in the interests of pupils’ education and should also consider parents and local businesses”.

That is quite a miraculous statement. We all know that the Government are confident that they will not be adversely affected overall. That is an answer that does not exactly fill me or the tourism industry with confidence. Throughout the Bill’s progress, tourism representatives have been raising strong objections that their concerns have not been addressed. The unintended consequences associated with passing these provisions are enormous. They should not be included in the Bill until their impact has been properly evaluated. I beg to move.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I shall defend paragraph 3(3) for many reasons. First, it is only right that maintained schools should have the same freedom as academies and free schools. A vast number of secondary schools and an increasing number of primary schools already have the freedom to determine their own term dates. It seems quite invidious that we are not allowing maintained schools to have the same freedom.

Secondly, my noble friend made an impassioned plea on behalf of the tourist industry, and we have all seen the lobbying material it has sent. I should like to make an impassioned plea on behalf of parents. As we all know, there is plenty of evidence that if parents can take holidays only in the one prescribed period when all schools are closed, they end up paying two, three or, in some cases, four times what it would cost them to have the same holiday at a slightly different time. I am just as interested in the finances of parents and their wish to be able to take their children out at different times because schools would not all be taking their holidays at exactly the same time.

My noble friend mentioned that it would be chaos for parents if they had children in different schools. For those of us who live in London, that is already the case. Different boroughs in London have slightly different term dates and many parents have children in one borough for primary school and in another for secondary school and they cope with that. It is not chaos; it is a perfectly simple thing that parents deal with in the small amount of time for which the schools coincide.

Over the years, various learned think tanks have come up with all sorts of suggestions about changing school terms. Some have suggested that we should go to four terms or that we should split the year into two semesters, each with a break, rather like American universities. They have adduced all sorts of psychological learning reasons for why this would be better for children than the very long gap that we currently have in the summer. I should like to think that this freedom given to schools would enable some of them to experiment in that way, based on very good pedagogical evidence.

I am for freedom. I think the tourist industry would not only cope very well—as it does; I have great confidence in the tourist industry—but would find that its period of busy activity would be extended if there were slight overlaps with some schools closing early in July and others going on to early August and so on. The freedom would enable parents—who, heaven knows, are strapped enough at present in the very grim times we have been going through—to take their family holidays over a slightly more extended period when the prices would not be double and treble what they are in the very compressed period when all schools take their holidays at the same. I think the tourism industry would adapt, and perhaps prosper, in this country.

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This measure gives governing bodies of community and voluntary controlled schools the flexibility they need to make changes to term dates to help pupils and parents. As I have argued, there are some instances in which pupils benefit from a different pattern of terms and holidays. As is now the case with academies and voluntary-aided schools, they will set term dates within practical constraints and co-ordinate through the local authority. In the vast majority of schools it is likely that no changes to term dates will be proposed, but where changes can help pupils’ education governing bodies will be able to do so following sensible local conversations with businesses, parents and others, taking into account religious and cultural exceptional cases, and the needs of pupils in particular areas, thereby taking a number of local exceptions into account. I hope that that provides the reassurance that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is looking for, and assure him that we are very much conscious of the needs of the tourism industry, as we are of the needs of education, and that we have got the balance right.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply. What happened to evidence-based policy-making? In my all noble friend’s points, I could see assertions; indeed, I could see assertions in what the vastly respected noble Baroness, Lady Perry, had to say. Nothing that my noble friend said was rooted in evidence. He read out a string of educational consultees and the Federation of Small Businesses. Later in his reply he mentioned BALPPA, but BALPPA is extremely unhappy about this. It is one thing to consult; it is another thing to actually listen to what the consultee is saying.

Both the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, and my noble friend talked about parents’ interests and so on. The fact is that many parents already find the system where some schools can set their own dates pretty much of a nightmare as well. There is already some advantage in uniformity. In a sense, the case that I am making is, “Why read the writing on the wall when you can read the book of the US experience?”. If we go to a set of very different dates, which this could potentially lead to, that will have a severely detrimental effect on the tourism industry.

My noble friend is relying on the idea that, in practice, it will not happen. What evidence do we have that it will not happen over a period of time, especially if the pressure is to have shorter summer holidays? That seems to be what the department would like to see, even though I accept the point that it is not up to the department to fix those dates. However, there is a way of establishing a culture, of which it is perfectly capable. The department judging that there will be no impact does not, I am afraid, have a great deal of force behind it. “No change likely” is not particularly plausible.

I very much hope that those local educational establishments—the schools and so on—will consult when they decide what dates they fix if we keep this in the Bill or delete it from Section 32. However, when did local schools ever go to the local attractions and piers and consult with them and local businesses about this kind of thing? It is highly implausible to imagine that the headmaster of a local school is going to consult local businesses when considering what dates they are going to fix, unless it is made clear in some sort of guidance or instruction that that is what they ought to do. Otherwise, I am afraid that it will be a difficult situation for local tourism attractions in these circumstances.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is no plot to reduce the length of the summer holiday. I fear that the noble Lord is suggesting that there is some Govian conspiracy afoot; there is not.

We have clear evidence from academies and pre-schools—the half of schools which already have the freedom. Only 8% have made any changes, and we see no evidence that it is likely that more will do so. There are strong arguments for at least one long break between terms every year. They include basic things such as school maintenance: repairing the roof and other such things. The same sort of argument exists for having a long break for the Houses of Parliament at one point during the year. In most instances we have no evidence whatever that there is a surge of demand to change the existing patterns.

I can reassure the noble Lord that the Department for Education is very much working with and has listened to BALPPA. We have agreed a new position. The advice that I have read out is an assurance: we are giving advice that schools should consider the needs of business. Having visited a number of costal towns on the east coast of England with my wife this last summer, I appreciate that costal towns in some instances are in real difficulty. However, that is not necessarily primarily connected with the position of schools and school holidays. There are a range of other problems that they are facing for other reasons.

I hope that I have said enough to reassure the noble Lord that this is not intended to produce radical revolution, but to produce a reasoned local compromise, a little more flexibility in the system and a little less interference from the top.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

I thank my noble friend for that peroration. It was very helpful. I think I have kicked the tyres on this particular clause enough. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 70 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

On my reading of the amendment that is not its intention. If the noble Lord wants to carry out a review of all licensing, I am very happy with that, but it is not the intention of the amendment. I am talking specifically about alcohol licences and the problems that are caused by the way in which they are operated. As I said, the application forms councils have to use are set out in regulations. This means that local authorities cannot combine forms so that a business can provide basic information once or even twice. Instead, businesses must complete this for each and every form required, overlapping and duplicating the information they provide. Councils tell us that they would like to have the freedom to remove this burden by combining and simplifying forms to cover just the information they need, thereby not placing undue burdens on businesses. Ending prescribed forms by regulation would enable that to happen without taking up parliamentary time. It is an easy thing for the Government to do by regulation. I always like to make things easy for the Government.

Individually, licensing regimes make sense and most of them continue to provide valuable safeguards. Typically, they have been brought in to tackle specific problems as they occur, which makes sense, as we have seen with the Scrap Metal Dealers Act. However, collectively, licensing regimes are a complex set of conflicting rules. The Licensing Act 2003 made an initial attempt to bring together multiple licences covering alcohol, entertainment and late-night refreshment under one Act. We want to take that further by rationalising and updating the legislation which is currently across at least five government departments. To give the Minister an example, I just referred to the Home Office and to the order I spoke to earlier this year, the draft Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Conditions) Order 2014. We have before us today a document on licensing from the Cabinet Office, and I was today given an impact assessment from the DCMS for yet another proposal to exempt regulating the provisions of the Licensing Act 2003.

That is very difficult for small and large businesses to manage and to cope with, but it can be simplified. That is a really easy thing to do, and does not cost any money. If we establish broad and consistent criteria for licensing schemes, we have to include transparency. There is also an issue around appeals and cost recovery processes. We need to enshrine the principle of joined-up related applications. That would simplify processes for businesses and councils and would also offer scope for improved safeguards for communities. Our proposal, which I believe is helpful to the Government—I thought I saw the Minister nodding at one point—is for a government-led review of local government licensing legislation, which would give the basis for a comprehensive licensing framework. We believe that that would help economic growth, and it would certainly help those businesses which have told us that they see a problem.

I turn to Amendment 75A, which is about making the licensing authority a relevant person. Clause 52 and Schedule 16 insert a new Part 5A into the Licensing Act 2003, to introduce a new procedure for authorising the sale of alcohol where the sale is ancillary to a community event or the provision of other goods or services. The clause and the schedule as a whole are sensible, and I am not going to oppose them. Currently, the requirement for obtaining a licence to sell alcohol is that it is sold on a commercial basis for profit. It is not to be given away freely or cheaply. However, we have some concerns around the unintended consequences of the new notices, including the potential costs to local authorities.

The new legislation outlines the prescribed fee, and we seek assurances that the fee will cover the cost to local authorities. Amendment 75A would make the licensing authority a relevant person. As the Bill is drafted, the licensing authority is responsible only for processing the applications. Objections to ancillary notices can be made only by the police or by council environmental health teams, not by the licensing authority. The licensing authority is the district council, the metropolitan London borough or unitary authority. That is the authority responsible for considering applications to sell alcohol and issuing a licence.

I am indebted to the Local Government Association, which supports Amendment 75A. I should declare that I am also one of its vice-presidents, as are many noble Lords. This mirrors a change made to the Licensing Act in 2012. When that change was introduced the Government said that licensing authorities were better able to respond quickly to the concerns of local residents and businesses by taking actions they considered appropriate to tackle irresponsible premises without having to wait for representations from other responsible authorities. We agreed at the time and we still agree with those reasons but we believe that they apply to all aspects of licensing. The Explanatory Notes on ancillary sales notices state that licensing authorities have the right to raise objections, but there is no wording to allow this. Expert legal advice confirmed that this power will not be available without an explicit reference in the legislation. Licensing authorities should be included on the list of relevant persons to ensure that they can raise local concerns about a notice if it is appropriate for them to do so.

My final amendments in this group, Amendments 75B, 75C, 75D and 75E, introduce a right of appeal to the licensing committee. This is really a streamlining process, because they introduce a right of appeal to the local licensing committee for applicants to use if their notice is refused because of an objection. That mirrors the Licensing Act regarding licensing committees whose judgment and applications are the subject of objections. Each licensing authority is required to establish a licensing committee that is formed of elected councillors, which will hold hearings and make decisions relating to licenses.

Local government prides itself on being the most open and transparent part of government and on being directly accountable to residents and businesses. It is worth noting that it also has the strictest rules regarding conflict of interests. I do not understand the reasons why, under the Government’s proposals, the only right of appeal against the decision not to grant a notice because of an objection is by judicial review. That seems a lengthy and expensive process, particularly when you take into account that applicants are prevented from reapplying for a licence for a period of 12 months. There is supposed to be a light-touch approach. Is that not hugely disproportionate and expensive for those businesses concerned?

I feel—and I am sure other noble Lords will probably accept this—that licensing processes within local government are pretty robust, but within any system objections can be raised with which applicants do not agree. Businesses should be able to appeal against objections they feel are unfair or do not take full account of their business proposal in a way that is straightforward and affordable. If we are insisting appeal has to be by judicial review, while that has to be part of any wider appeals process, it does not meet the criteria of being proportionate, straightforward and reasonable in cost.

We are not talking about a great deal of money here. Fewer than 5% of regular licences are refused. It is anticipated that it will be even lower for the new licences, so the financial impact on most applications would be negligible. It seems a bit OTT to have a judicial review process before any other appeal process is brought into play. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, perhaps I should not use the expression “happy hour” in this context, but we have spent many happy hours over the past few years debating licensing provisions. I have a bit of a horror of this clause, I must confess. The idea of this gargantuan review of what is effectively the amended Licensing Act 2003 seems to be vastly overengineering what is needed in this context. The reason I say that is that I remember pressing the Government nonstop between 2005 and 2010 on entertainment licensing, asking them to take a view about the way in which the Act worked for live music. Finally, rather than wait for a review, I had to put a Private Member’s Bill in and get that through before we got any further sense—luckily from this Government—on the wider scope of deregulation of entertainment more generally.

The idea that we are going to start digging up the plant by the roots at this stage, whether entertainment licensing, alcohol licensing or whatever, fills me full of horror. We have had debate after debate. We had a very long debate on the late night levy. We have got to let that bed in. I was not a great fan of some of that legislation, and I would very much like to see whether it is working. I suggest a rather more piecemeal approach to review. I am not against reviewing bits of the legislation, but this kind of vast superstructure of review over the whole of licensing in this area seems undesirable.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Smith on Amendment 70A. I will not comment on Amendment 75A and the subsequent amendments as I will speak on those topics separately later. I am full of horror on hearing the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, express that view. What has been happening with licensing is an absolute shambles, an absolute mess, at local authority level. If the Minister responds that he would like to see a review of all of them, which is what was advocated in Rewiring Public Services: Rewiring Licensing, I would be very happy to support him. There are so many areas in which local government needs to come into the present century and to review the way it looks at issues, particularly using old-fashioned approaches when in fact it should be moving in a digital way in so many ways, that it is high time that there should be an overall review right across the board on what is happening there and to see how we can effect some greater efficiencies than we have at the moment. When this report came out earlier in the year, it was looked at in the context of the debates that took place on the Deregulation Bill. I recommend that those who are opposed to it go back and read the Hansard report and they will see that a fair wind was given by Ministers at the other end to this being a possibility in the future. The simple fact is that if work had been done on the LGA’s report, with more time spent on that and legislation produced on it, much of it would be a damn sight better than some of the stuff that we have in the Deregulation Bill.