Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Viscount Astor and Baroness Browning

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I suspect from what I have heard in this debate that I am going to end up having “nanny” in front of my name. However, I shall be a benign, jazz-loving nanny, so perhaps that will be all right.

An early-morning restriction order is an uncommenced power that already exists under the Licensing Act 2003 and will allow licensing authorities to restrict sales of alcohol in the whole or part of their area for any specified period between 3 am and 6 am. The fact that it is an uncommenced order made us look again at what needed to be improved in the previous legislation.

I was asked whether this was a change in policy on the part of the Government. These orders are a power that local authorities can use to restrict the supply of alcohol from licensed premises and clubs and at temporary events for a period of one or more nights beginning at or after midnight and ending at or before 6 am. We are committed to ensuring that licensing authorities and enforcement agencies are given the right tools to address alcohol-related problems, and we see this as a necessary tool to enable them to have more flexibility to deal with specific problems within their areas. At the same time, we need to balance this measure by promoting a healthy night-time economy to benefit businesses and the communities that they serve. I am confident that this proposal will provide the licensing authorities with an additional tool to deliver these aims. It will be up to them to decide whether they use it at all and how they use it.

I want to prevent any concerns that EMROs applied from midnight will unfairly penalise responsible premises that regularly trade between the hours of midnight and one o’clock. Those are not quite the same as the hours that the noble Lord mentioned in respect of his small jazz club but there are premises that go on beyond midnight. I acknowledge that the majority of retailers trade responsibly. However, I say to my noble friend Lord Astor that residents and residents groups have told us that the night-time economy generates a significant amount of alcohol-related anti-social behaviour and that these problems typically surface from midnight onwards. Indeed, not all serious crime is as a result of alcohol but 15 per cent of serious crime is committed after midnight.

There will be exemptions from EMROs set centrally by the Government in secondary legislation. These will ensure that retailers who operate responsibly are not unfairly penalised by the introduction of an EMRO, and we will of course be consulting on this. For that reason, I ask my noble friend not to press that particular amendment.

[Viscount Astor]

May I ask my noble friend a question before she leaves that subject because I know that she has a huge number of amendments to reply to? She spoke about crime committed after midnight, which is certainly true, but does she accept that the statistics show that the majority of crime is committed much later than that—at two, three or four o’clock in the morning? Therefore, to say that midnight is the cut-off which would help that is not correct or particularly fair to those operators. Does she also accept, which is very important, that if there is a tendency by the Government and local authorities to determine that midnight will be the new relevant hour, the effect will be to put half the operators out of business, which will create a much greater problem of social disruption and crime than there is at the moment?

[Baroness Browning]

I understand the point that my noble friend is making but I reiterate that this is a flexible option for local authorities. They will know where the hotspots are and whether things happen on a particular night of the week. They will have the flexibility to make sure that if they intend to exercise the option—it will be optional—to introduce an EMRO, they can scale the EMRO according to the problem that presents in their locality. It does not have to start at midnight or finish at 6 am but it is between those hours that an EMRO can apply. Just on that point, because I sense that noble Lords feel that this is a draconian measure, it strengthens the licensing authorities’ powers in the sense that it gives them an additional tool in the box, but to get that balance right it has the flexibility that I hope will not create the concerns that businesses might feel, as represented today. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones mentioned that the full council would not decide to make an EMRO. It is the case with the existing legislation, and will still be the case that the decision will be made by the full council. That has not changed at all in the updating of the legislation.

Moving on to Amendments 240PA to 240SA and the question of private clubs, I recognise the intention of noble Lords to remove private club premises certificates from the effect of an EMRO. There are, of course, clubs and clubs. I am sure that in any private club, of which noble Lords are members, propriety is observed in their proceedings, whatever the time of the day or night. I see noble Lords trying not to catch my eye on this, so they may know. It is important to note that antisocial behaviour and crime and disorder are not necessarily attributed to one premises but a cluster of premises in a concentrated area. There is no evidence to suggest that clubs do not contribute to these types of problems in the night-time economy. The Government do not want to penalise those businesses that operate responsibly and as such, if the licensing authority decides to impose an EMRO in the local area, businesses, including all clubs, will be able to make a relevant representation and provide evidence that they do not contribute to late-night crime and disorder and anti-social behaviour.

At this point, I should say to my noble friend Lord Astor, that on many occasions as a Member of Parliament I went out on Friday and Saturday nights with the police in small Devon market towns where they have perhaps one or two clubs and some late-night licences. Although I completely admire the work that the police and other agencies do at that time of night, it has not been my experience as a Member of Parliament that all anti-social behaviour, including things that are well in the frame of criminality occur after 2 am or 3 am. I was prompted to go out with the police on one occasion because between the hours of midnight and one in the morning, small shopkeepers regularly complained that their shop fronts were kicked in. I would say to my noble friend that within the scope of EMROs and the procedure to be followed in a licensing authority introducing an EMRO into the area, there will be plenty of scope for businesses to make their case, if they feel that they have one. None the less we feel that it is an important tool that licensing authorities will welcome.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Viscount Astor and Baroness Browning

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, the Government consulted, and I cannot give the noble Lord an immediate answer on that specific issue. As I have said, 55 per cent—the majority—of those consulted were in favour of the proposal in the Bill.

[Viscount Astor]

My Lords, this has been an interesting brief debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones for supporting the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that we must have a system that is rigorous and fair. I agree with him. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that it must be reasonable and she was worried whether appropriate can be reasonable.

My noble friend Lord Brooke suggested that the Government got it right because Westminster council and other councils face strong legal challenges. I will own up to having taken Westminster council to judicial review and won. The worry is that by putting in “appropriate”, legal challenges will not diminish but increase because everybody will argue about its meaning. Of course Westminster council would like the word put in; it gives local councils more power. Everybody likes more power, including Governments, local authorities and councils. However, this would give them power without the safeguards that are required, because it would enable someone in a local authority who has a view about a particular operator to put conditions on them such that they would have to close down. That would result in huge legal challenges because it would destroy the value of their business and would affect employment and lots of other things in that area.

The Minister gave an interesting reply, but I was marginally disappointed by it. She suggested that using “appropriate” would help to get rid of irresponsible operators. However, it is quite easy to get rid of irresponsible operators; that problem was not put by anybody who gave evidence to the Government. A licence to trade is incredibly valuable; it takes a lot of money and you have to go through a huge number of hoops. People do not trade in order to lose their licence because that will destroy their business. Of course there are bad operators, but they get removed easily; there is no evidence that local authorities have problems closing down irresponsible operators.

It is important that conditions should apply to licences, but they must be fair. My noble friend suggested that the Government would issue guidance. It would be helpful if the Government could produce draft guidance for noble Lords. In that context, I wonder whether between now and Report my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and I could meet the Minister in order to understand better the concerns of the Government and come up with a solution, either by another amendment to the Bill if this amendment is not right, or by understanding what guidance can do to solve the problem of giving some assurance to operators that their business will not be impaired by unfair decisions that will involve them and local authorities in substantial legal costs and will be detrimental to everybody. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, what a spurious suggestion. Amendments 240C, 240D, 240F, 240G, 240H and 240J would allow licensing authorities to apply existing licence conditions to temporary events if they considered it appropriate. They would also give them powers to prescribe a set of standard conditions that they could apply to a temporary event if appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives, as long as they were not inconsistent with the purpose of the event. This is far too onerous a requirement for what is intended to be a light-touch process for events of short duration. Temporary event notices are not supposed to be the norm, although licensing authorities and the police tell us that a few unscrupulous licensed premises have tried to use the TEN process to evade their licensing conditions.

Licensed conditions can be costly—for example, the requirement to have trained door staff where alcohol is sold. Although these costs may be justified and necessary for permanent activities, I believe that they could impose unreasonable costs on those holding temporary events. We are proposing that licensing authorities should be able to apply some or all existing licence conditions to attend but only if the police or, in future, the environmental health authority object to the TEN on the grounds of any of the licensing objectives.

Currently, the licensing authority has only two options; that is, to allow a TEN to go ahead or to issue a counternotice to prevent it. This provides a third option that, in relation to events at premises for which there is already a licence, will allow these events to go ahead but with relevant licence conditions applied to ensure adequate protection for patrons, residents and local businesses. I believe that this is a proportionate response to the problems caused by a small number of temporary events and will not unfairly penalise responsible businesses.

Clause 113 will allow the environmental health authority to object to a temporary event notice. Local residents have told us that temporary events can cause problems in relation to other licensing objectives; that is, public safety, the protection of children from harm and public nuisance. The most common problem is noise, and residents and others have asked us to give local authorities the power to prevent temporary events that cause noise nuisance from going ahead. For that reason, we propose to extend the right to object to a temporary event notice to the environmental health authority and to allow it and the police to object to a TEN on the grounds of any of the licensing objectives.

Clause 114, which relates to the proposal to prescribe a set of standard conditions, would also undermine one of the fundamental principles of the Licensing Act 2003; namely, that conditions should be appropriate and tailored to specific events. Proposals include measures to ensure that events that might lead to crime and disorder or nuisance do not go ahead. We are also putting in place other controls to ensure that temporary events are adequately controlled. We are extending the right to object from the police to environmental health officers as well and by extending the grounds for objections to cover not only the prevention of crime and disorder but also public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and protection of children from harm. I think that that is a repeat of what I have just said in relation to another clause.

Under Clause 116, currently a temporary event notice can be used only for events of up to 96 hours or 4 days and there must be a break of 24 hours between each temporary event. Therefore, we propose to increase TENs from 96 hours, 4 days, to 168 hours, 7 days. Temporary event notices are used by organisations such as travelling theatre companies and festivals, which typically run productions and events over a week. At the moment, their only option is to break for 24 hours in the middle of a run with consequent loss of earnings and inconvenience. This is an artificial constraint on activities which are extremely unlikely to compromise the licensing objectives.

There may be concerns that this proposal will allow week-long events that might undermine the licensing objectives. I can assure the House that this will not be the case. We are relaxing these limits, but we have tightened up other aspects of the temporary event notice process. For those reasons, I ask that the noble Lord does not oppose that the clause should stand part of the Bill.

[Viscount Astor]

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend a question or put in a plea. As she will know better than me, next year is the Queen’s jubilee and there will be street parties. Will she give an assurance that none of these changes to be put in place will affect the ability for people to have street parties, so that they will not run into the difficulties that some people had when holding a street party for the royal wedding?

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, consultation and guidelines are being drawn up, but I believe that I can give that assurance.