Licensing Hours Extensions Bill

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st February 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Philp]

We would all appreciate a fast passage for the Bill. If somebody wishes to make an application regarding a particular event of international, national or local significance, they can obviously do so, and each will be considered on its own terms. The condition in the 2003 Act is that the event should be

“of exceptional international, national, or local significance”.

No doubt many hon. Members will have ideas about events that might meet the criteria.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields on the Bill. Could the Minister clarify two points about the scope?

Who would make the application, for example for an extension of the licence on St David’s day or for some other occasion? We might have a St Aidan’s day extension or St Bede’s day extension for South Shields.

Secondly, will it be all licensed premises? Will it include working men’s clubs as well as pubs? I am very much in favour of supporting local businesses; we have had terrible problems in my constituency with the Conservative/Lib Dem-led council introducing car parking charges, which will undermine local businesses, so this is a great opportunity to give them a boost.

[Chris Philp]

On the hon. Gentleman’s second question, yes, the extension applies to any licensed premises—presuming he means a premises licence for consumption on the premises, rather than off-licences—so that would include working men’s clubs. On his first question, essentially anyone can approach the Home Office with an idea for an event that might qualify for the criteria.

[Grahame Morris]

Even individuals?

[Chris Philp]

Yes, even individuals could make an approach to the Home Office. It is not a formal application; they just approach and say, “There’s an event coming up and we think it meets the criteria. If you agree, will you make the relevant negative statutory instrument?” It would be for the Home Office and the Government to decide whether the criteria were met, and the SI would then go through the normal negative process, potentially quite quickly.

The hon. Gentleman reeled off a number of saints’ names. Just to manage expectations, it is worth putting it on the record that this is intended to be a rarely used power. I do not know how many saints there are in total, but I think there are quite a lot, and we would not want this to turn into a back-door extension of licensing hours from 11 pm to 1 am, or whatever it might be, as a matter of routine. I do not think the intention is that this will be used for every single saint in heaven, if that is the right turn of phrase.

[Grahame Morris]

We could do it for Armed Forces Day.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman is mentioning ideas from a sedentary position. There are a lot of ideas, but we should have quite a high threshold. It should be a rarely used power, and it would not be right if we had 20 or 30 extensions a year. That would be effectively moving the closing time for pubs on a semi-systemic basis. We should be reserving this power for relatively rare and relatively significant occasions.

I am here as the police and crime Minister, as well as the Minister responsible for licensing. The police have expressed some concern about extensions relating to sporting events—particularly football, but it might apply more widely. They are worried that disorder might result if people get more drunk than they otherwise would. We have listened to that concern and decided that on balance this is worth doing. We will consider each application on its merits as it is made. However, there are two sides to the coin, and before we attempt to unleash a tsunami of applications we should keep in mind that there is a balance to strike.

The hon. Member for South Shields has set out the technicalities very well indeed. I thank her for her diligence and application.