Rural Crime: NFU Mutual Report

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, given—as we have already heard from the Minister—the very special challenges and additional costs faced by councils and police forces in rural areas, does the Minister believe that it is fair that, currently, they get less funding per head than urban areas? What plans do the Government have to introduce a funding formula that is fair to rural communities.

Licensing Act 2003 (Liaison Committee Report)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I suspect that very few of us would doubt the merit of the decision that was made to introduce special Select Committees and ensure that some carry out post-legislative scrutiny. It is equally welcome that, from time to time, the Liaison Committee conducts a follow-up inquiry. I had the opportunity to serve on both the 2017 special committee that reviewed the 2003 Licensing Act and the Liaison Committee in its follow-up work, which reported last year. Both were extremely ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

As we have already heard, the committee concluded that a radical, comprehensive overhaul of the Act was needed, with the work of licensing committees being taken over by planning committees and appeals going to the Planning Inspectorate rather than to magistrates. The committee made a large number of recommendations, which included: better training of councillors engaged in licensing activities; increased safeguards in relation to the extra powers given to the police; the use of taxation and pricing measures to control excessive consumption; a reconsideration of measures such as early morning restriction orders and late night levies; and bringing the sale of alcohol airside within the ambit of licensing legislation. I want to concentrate my remarks on just two of the other recommendations that we made: greater co-ordination between the planning and licensing functions of local authorities; and measures to embed the agent of change principle into planning legislation, guidance and practice more effectively.

In terms of co-ordination between planning and licensing, the Select Committee recommended:

“Sections 6–10 of the Licensing Act 2003 should be amended to transfer the functions of local authority licensing committees and sub-committees to the planning committees”,


and we suggested that there should be trials of this in pilot areas. When the new regime was being designed at the turn of the century, local authority planning committees were in full control of nearly all aspects of land use other than licensing. The committee concluded that it was—and, frankly, remains—a mystery why, when control of land use for the sale of alcohol was being considered, it was thought necessary to set up committees with different constitutions and powers. The result is absurdities like applications for new pubs receiving planning permission but not alcohol licences, or vice versa, sometimes on the grounds that the noise anticipated would be excessive in a residential area for planning purposes but not for licensing purposes.

The committee’s proposal would have resolved those absurdities. Responding to the Select Committee’s report, the Government acknowledged that there was a problem, saying that they

“recognise that coordination between systems is inconsistent and could be improved in many areas”.

However, as we have sadly heard, the Government have ruled out even trials of our proposals. I will suggest to the Minister two other reasons why the Government should reconsider.

The first is quite simple. As the noble Baroness has already said, planning policies compete with each other but also with licensing policies. Decision-makers must weigh up competing policies—both planning and licensing—on a case-by-case basis. Surely the Minister agrees that managing that balance is best done by a single decision-making body.

The second argument relates to current problems within planning decision-making. The planning process is frequently blamed for a shortfall in the provision of new housing. It is taking longer and longer to approve even planning permission for home extensions. Last year, for example, more than 100,000 such applications took more than eight weeks to reach a decision. It would be easy to blame local planning authorities but LGA research shows that, faced with reductions in funding, 305 of the 343 planning departments are operating at a deficit. As a result, they have significant staff shortages. A quarter of planning authorities do not even have a head of planning reporting directly to a council chief executive. England’s chief planning officer, Joanna Averley, acknowledged this recently, saying that there are

“not enough planners coming into local government”.

She added that the Government do not have the funds to pay for more.

It is plain that a major amendment to the planning process will have to come sooner rather than later. The amalgamation of planning and licensing through economies of scale would go some way towards helping the problems I have described. Does the Minister accept that this would be the time to include reform of the licensing process so that the task is given to planning committees, as the Select Committee first recommended six years ago?

Another example illustrating the potential confusion between planning and licensing is in respect of the agent of change principle; I hope that my comments here will complement those of the noble Baroness. Put simply, the agent of change principle ensures that a new development must shoulder responsibility for compliance when situated near, for example, an existing music venue. Similarly, if a music venue opens in an existing residential area, the new venue would be responsible for complying with residential requirements such as enhanced sound-proofing.

Members of the Select Committee were pleased that the Government agreed with our recommendation that the agent of change principle should be reflected in both the National Planning Policy Framework and Section 182 guidance. This has now happened. However, the Liaison Committee heard that the principle is inadequate as it stands and does not sufficiently explain the duties of all parties involved. It needs to go further to protect licensed premises and local residents in our changing high streets. Indeed, coupled with the lack of consistency between the planning and licensing systems, the current arrangements are still not guaranteeing the protection of live venues.

In a recent debate on the levelling up Bill, I cited two examples—the Night & Day Café in Manchester and the Jago in Dalston—both of which have both been served with noise abatement notices as a result of complaints from residents of newly developed properties in their vicinities. Fortunately, the Jago prevailed at appeal and the noise abatement notice was withdrawn by the council. For Night & Day, however, the appeal has still not been resolved after lengthy delays.

Under the present arrangements, the agent of change principle is not covered by legislation; it is only in policy, with language that has proved vague. How do decision-makers interpret words such as “effectively”, “unreasonable” or “suitable”? How do they balance the agent of change principle against, for example, the urgent need for more housing? How do existing businesses know well enough in advance about new developments that may have an impact on them?

To resolve such issues, the Liaison Committee recommended that:

“The Government should review the ‘Agent of Change’ principle, strengthen it, and consider incorporating it into current planning reforms in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill”.


The Government did not disagree; and they also pointed to the then upcoming Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill as a vehicle to address these concerns.

As we have heard, in Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, moved an amendment, which I strongly supported, which would have incorporated the agent of change principle into law for licensing and other purposes. The amendment would have helped the Government achieve what they agreed was needed: greater clarity about what was expected of councils and businesses. However, the Minister responding, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, claimed that the amendment was not needed and gave the reasons we have already heard. She said that

“we will make sure that our policy results in better protections for these businesses and delivers on the agent of change principle in practice”.—[Official Report, 24/4/23; col. 995.]

But there are currently no such relevant changes proposed in the Bill. So I repeat the question asked by the noble Baroness: can the Minister explain exactly how the Government intend to achieve both the recommendations of the Liaison Committee and, more importantly, their own promise?

I began by welcoming special Select Committee and Liaison Committee follow-up reports. Frankly, it would be even more welcome if the Government paid greater attention to their work and proposals.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the responsibilities of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have an impact on all our lives in both our leisure activities, from sport to theatre, and our working lives, with the crucial reliance on communications and data. The creative industries boost our economy and the BBC boosts our standing overseas. However, despite all this and much more, it is an undervalued and under-resourced department. As a result, opportunities are missed, such as the role that the creative industries could play in rural areas to help the levelling-up agenda.

Of course I accept that the department is doing things, including reforms in areas such as data, media, digital competition and online safety. However, even in some of these areas, it is simply not going fast enough. For example, I am pleased that the Government recognise the need to tackle tech giants’ anti-competitive practices and say that action is urgent but, instead of enacting the proposals for the Digital Markets Unit, we are offered a draft Bill—hardly urgent action.

I have spoken many times in your Lordships’ House about the need for urgent action to reform gambling; I declare my interest as the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform. This is yet another area where we have seen dither and delay—sadly, that delay is costing lives—while gambling companies make multi-billion-pound profits. We have well over a third of a million problem gamblers; amazingly, 60,000 of them are children. Some 2 million people are impacted by it all and, sadly, more than one gambling-related suicide occurs every single day. We cannot continue as we are, with outdated legislation designed before the advent of the smartphone. Can the Minister at least tell us exactly when the much-delayed White Paper will be published?

There are many gaps: there are no measures to improve the protection for our world-beating creative, design and brand industry, the success of which is continually threatened by digital piracy and counterfeiting. It is now 18 months since the Government’s Digital Markets Taskforce recommended solutions, so can the Minister tell us whether the Government plan to progress these recommendations and, if so, when?

Our world-leading sports industries rely on income underpinned by intellectual property rights, yet their digital rights are poorly protected and their TV rights are now under threat, as we increasingly see drones feeding TV pictures to the betting community without the permission of the organisers. Bizarrely, this is entirely legal at present. Sporting bodies have developed sensible proposals to rectify the situation, so will the Minister at least agree to meet them?

The Government claim they are prioritising improvement in intellectual property protection in those countries with which we are negotiating trade agreements, yet industries that rely on IP are not convinced. They point to the CPTPP, from which it is clear that, rather than a rule-maker, we will be a rule-taker and there will be little deviation from the existing agreement with its poor IP protection. That is hardly prioritising intellectual property in trade negotiations.

Even over Brexit, because the DCMS lacks any clout in Whitehall, it was ignored when the deal was being negotiated. As a result, BEIS failed to protect our second-largest sector, the creative arts, which covers one in eight businesses. The perfectly sensible cultural visa waiver scheme offered by the EU was rejected for mistaken ideological reasons. The consequent increase in complexity and red tape for touring musicians and other performance artists will not be fixed, as the Government try to claim, by what my noble friend describes as the “quagmire” of differing bilateral deals with individual EU countries.

Finally, given that so much needs to be done, can the Minister explain why vital legislative time is to be used to provide a solution where there is no problem and no public support? The Secretary of State claims that the privatisation of Channel 4 is necessary because the current ownership model has “serious challenges”, yet your Lordships’ Select Committee, like many others, stated:

“We are not convinced … by those who claim that privatisation is an urgent necessity”.


I will not repeat the many eloquent arguments made by other noble Lords, but will ask just one question. The remit of Channel 4 includes several quotas, such as the percentage of production that should be made outside London. But Channel 4 committed to exceeding them and Ofcom confirms that it has. The broadcasting White Paper specifically says:

“The government will require this new owner to adhere to ongoing commitments, similar to those Channel 4 has today”.


Can the Minister explain whether this means that a new owner must maintain the quotas Channel 4 has achieved or the lower ones set out in the remit? Surely, if it is the lower ones, this totally contradicts the Government’s promise that they expect the new owner to continue to

“deliver outcomes in line with those we see today”.

With so much else that needs fixing, I fail to understand why an underresourced and undervalued department is wasting time on an unnecessary and unpopular project.

Metropolitan Police: Live Facial Recognition

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Metropolitan Police about the use of Live Facial Recognition deployments; whether the watchlists for such deployments are composed exclusively of serious criminals; and what is the definition of serious criminals for this purpose.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

On behalf of my noble friend Lord Strasburger, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Home Office has regular discussions with the Metropolitan Police Service about a wide range of issues, including facial recognition. It has published detailed information about its approach to the deployments, including on the composition of watchlists.

[Lord Foster of Bath]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. As this dangerously invasive technology develops, taking us ever closer to a surveillance society, the Government continue to claim that it is for use in the catching of only serious criminals, not people with overdue parking fines. However, the Metropolitan Police’s operating procedures make no mention whatever of limiting its use to serious criminals. How does the Minister explain this discrepancy? When will the Government end their wilful blindness and halt the uncontrolled use of facial recognition until Parliament has had an opportunity to legislate to manage it?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there were several points in that question. First, the High Court has said that the police are operating within the legal framework. Secondly, this technology would not be used in relation to overdue parking tickets. To quote the Metropolitan Police, its use of this technology targets

“those wanted for imprisonable offences, with a focus on serious crime, with a particular regard to knife and gun crime, child sexual exploitation and terrorism”.

Licensing Act 2003: Post-Legislative Scrutiny (Licensing Act 2003 Report)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I too served on the Select Committee and wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for both chairing the committee and securing this debate. I also thank the excellent staff and advisers who served us so well and the other members of the committee, from whom I learned a great deal.

Our task was a difficult one, which was made more complicated by the large number of amendments that have been made to the legislation since it came into force. Indeed, further amendments were being debated as the committee was sitting. We also had to consider many other changes such as the one raised by the noble Lords, Lord Mancroft and Lord Smith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins—namely the changes to the way that alcohol is now consumed, with the closure of thousands of pubs and the significant growth of off-trade and online purchasing. All this made it difficult to assess the impact of the legislation.

This difficulty is illustrated by the statistics. Alcohol-related violent crime has decreased but—as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, so powerfully described—alcohol-related illness has increased. Nevertheless, the committee made some powerful suggestions for future action. The Government’s much-delayed response was somewhat disappointing—it was certainly a mixture of disappointing and defensive, as the noble Lord, Lord Blair, put it. I hope that, as a result of today’s debate, the Government will at least be prepared to reconsider their response to some of our recommendations. Nobody can claim that all is well and no further action is needed. The worrying health statistics alone should give us cause for concern.

We should also be concerned by many other issues, including the failure of current legislation to apply airside and port side, the consequences of which were described by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh; and the inadequacy of resources to police and enforce existing legislation. Surely if our proposal to localise licence fee-setting is not to be accepted, the Minister should at least accept the well argued for need for a flat-rate increase. We should also be concerned about the absence of a useful national database of, for example, personal licence holders.

We should be especially concerned by the significant dissatisfaction we found with the licensing application and appeals processes. The licensing application procedures were variously described to us as “a lottery” and “a pantomime”. We heard of “standards falling far short”; “meek and mild” legal advisers; responsible bodies not engaging effectively, and often not at all; a lack of transparency, with decisions being made “behind closed doors”; and inadequate councillor training. We heard all too frequently of the lack of co-ordination between licensing and planning. We concluded that there would be considerable merit in the licensing application procedures mirroring those for planning applications, which, as we heard, include professionally qualified officers; a requirement for officials to proactively gather and analyse the views of interested people; and the preparation of a wide-ranging pre-meeting report offering detailed analysis, professional judgment and legal advice. We argue that, combined with improved training, that should all be part of the licensing procedures. Better still, as so eloquently argued by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, planning and licensing should be combined.

Although the Government have rejected that proposal, I welcome their recognition of the need for improved training, for greater synergies between planning and licensing, and for stronger guidance on how licensing hearings should be conducted. I hope that in her winding-up speech the Minister will provide details of the action to be taken and the timescales involved. Will she also do the same for licensing appeals, given the Government’s acceptance of the committee’s concerns about those procedures?

Of course, what emerges will lead to changes not to legislation but to guidance. So it is particularly disappointing that the Government have so easily dismissed the committee’s call for a return to consultation on and parliamentary scrutiny of draft guidance. The Government argue:

“The guidance is updated to reflect legislative changes; as these are factual changes it is not necessary to carry out a formal consultation”.


But this argument simply does not bear scrutiny. In their response to the committee’s report, the Government said that,

“there are a significant number of recommendations”—

at least 12 by my count—

“that the Government agrees will help improve the operation of the Act, for example clarifying points of practice for licensing committees by amending the statutory guidance”.

These are not simply “factual” or resulting from “legislative changes”, but rather—because, after all, this is what guidance is for—they will reflect and interpret legislation, improving, as the Government put it, the operation of the Act.

My noble friend Lady Grender, for instance, will wish to scrutinise the changes to guidance in respect of simultaneous temporary event notices given for adjacent plots of land. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, I was deeply disappointed by the Government’s rejection of our pragmatic proposals on disabled access, and I know that my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, who is keen to see more licensed premises engage with the problems of access for people with disabilities, will wish to scrutinise any changes that arise following the now promised further consultation. Where the Government offer new interpretations of legislation, there should be consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that the Minister will agree to look again at this decision.

In passing, since some of our recommendations are to be affected by changes to the LGA handbook, I ask for details of this mysterious publication and the status it has or will have.

The committee’s report covered numerous other issues, but I finish by touching on just one. Despite the undoubted benefits of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s Live Music Act, in which I played a small part in the other place, live music venues and other licensed premises still face significant challenges with, for example, 35% of music venues closing in the last decade. The committee considered one measure that could help: the introduction of a full “agent of change” principle into planning and licensing law. It has already been introduced for permitted developments, such as the change of an empty office building to residential use. But with music venues facing closure as a result of planning decisions, the committee proposed the introduction of the agent of change principle for all new developments. Since the Government’s consultation on such an approach ended over eight months ago, will the Minister update the House on progress? Will she tell us whether she supports the Bill from John Spellar MP—it has cross-party support—which seeks to put a full agent of change principle on a statutory footing?

Members of the committee and other noble Lords have raised important points and posed numerous questions for the Minister. Like them, I look forward to her response. I again thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for chairing the committee and securing today’s debate. I end by echoing the Christmas greetings of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, to one and all.

Betting Shops: Serious Crime

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The most recent data that we have are from the Commercial Victimisation Survey, which includes the whole industry of casinos, bookmakers and arcades. Therefore, we have information and we take it very seriously.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of research that shows a link between crime and anti-social behaviour and those areas where there are large clusters of betting shops. She has already acknowledged that some changes in planning legislation have made it slightly harder to open a betting shop. Does she not agree that the time has now come to go even further and make betting shops a single-use category under planning legislation?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not agree with the noble Lord on that point but I agree that councils, the police and licensing committees all need to take into consideration some of the harms that gambling can cause. However, some of the most dangerous gambling now takes place online, where no one can see it.

Olympics (Security)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an assumption about differences in statements that have been made. I have explained: if he looks at what G4S has been saying, it made it clear that it realised only recently that it was not going to be able to deliver. It rightly, as a company, put its hand up and said, “We did have problems; it was our mistake.” As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), it is willing to provide funding to cover the extra costs that will be incurred. The right hon. Gentleman referred to other comments that have been made. I dealt with some of those in my statement.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Notwithstanding the abysmal failure of G4S to date, is it the intention once the games have begun that G4S will continue to recruit, train and schedule its security staff to Olympic venues, enabling some of our troops to go home early?

[Mrs May]

It is certainly the case that G4S will continue to provide staff at Olympic venues. Crucially, of course, it will also provide staff for the Paralympics. It will still make a significant contribution to venue security at the Olympic and Paralympic games. There will be more military personnel, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, they have already been informed that they will undertake these duties.

Olympics (Security)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think that I can deal swiftly with the right hon. Lady’s response. First, I thank her for her support for the decision. Secondly, I should say that it is not a shambles when the Government take the action necessary to ensure that we are providing the venue security. Troops have always been part of the provision of venue security and we are taking the action that ensures that we have the confidence that the numbers will be there. She should have listened to the answer I gave to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about the timetable in relation to the G4S contract. It is a LOCOG contract, and it is for LOCOG to exercise the penalties within it.

As for the right hon. Lady’s reference to my hon. Friends the security Minister and the Minister for Immigration, I am sure that if neither of them had been speaking publicly about these issues today she would have complained about that as well. I am slightly sorry that she has not taken the approach of her noble Friend, Lord West, who has said, “I’m not trying to indulge in a blame game regarding Governments.” It is a pity that she could not, like him, be a bit more statesmanlike.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Safety and security is of paramount importance, and we should welcome the willingness of our armed forces to take on these additional responsibilities. Will the Home Secretary assure us that the additional troops will be provided with the necessary training, particularly for specialist tasks such as scanning? If G4S can bring additional people in, may we have an assurance that troop numbers will be reduced over time?

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those questions. Yes, I can absolutely give the assurance that the training will be provided. We will of course want to ensure that at all times we have the correct number and the correct mix of people available to undertake venue security duties. I assure him that the troops will be used for tasks for which they have been fully trained.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue and I remind him and other hon. Members that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee asked Members of Parliament to write to the Home Office to say whether they had any cases of the sort that the hon. Gentleman mentions. The work that we have been doing is of course clearing up the chaotic mess in the asylum system that was left, sadly, by the last Government.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

With tourism vital to places such as Bath, it is worrying that the more and more people who travel abroad from countries such as India and China tend not to come to this country because they think that the UKBA is unwelcoming. Should we not at least have a special visa for 2012 to commemorate the Olympics and the diamond jubilee, and have the application forms in the language of the tourist rather than in English?

[Mrs May]

I fully understand the benefits and importance of tourism to certain parts of the United Kingdom such as my right hon. Friend’s constituency. I assure him that special arrangements have been put in place by the UKBA for those who are travelling to be part of or to view the Olympics next summer.