Legislative Reform (Licensing) (Interim Authority Notices etc) Order 2010

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, having looked through the order and the rather daunting Explanatory Notes, I realised that basically this series of changes is designed to make it easier for everyone involved to operate. Extending the period from seven days to 28, as proposed, is a positive suggestion. The idea of going to working days rather than an arbitrary number of hours for police objections is another totally sensible suggestion, as are the other extensions of periods that are brought in. When the previous Government and the current Government have proven something, it would be foolhardy to go beyond that.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned that she does not envisage any substantial police objections. Was there any consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers on this matter? Sometimes there may be individual points of view from different constabularies, but seldom do we get a total view. It would be helpful to know whether such consultation took place and, if so, the response.

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords for their questions, which I hope to be able to clarify. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that there will not be any further cuts in that respect. As to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, we have had several consultations. The list is in the dossier. The objections were included in what I said earlier. I can send the noble Lord the details of the consultations. I thank him for that rather important point.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his three questions. First, I should clarify that the Delegated Powers Committee said that the order needed to be an affirmative instrument so that it would have to be approved and so that a positive case would have to be made for it. As an affirmative instrument, it must be approved, which is why we are doing this today. The committee stated:

“The Committee considers that the Order meets the tests in the 2006 Act, is not otherwise inappropriate for the LRO procedure, and recommends that it be upgraded to the affirmative procedure”.

The noble Lord also asked whether the Government intend to charge a fee for a temporary event notice. At the moment, the fee for a TEN is £21. The Government have no plans to change that. Regarding cuts, we estimate that the change to the TENs objection period would have an extremely small notional burden on the TEN users of £8,000 to £61,000 annually in England and Wales. We have no plans to cut the licensing fees. The fees are set to cover the cost of administering and enforcing the licensing programme. Those costs should not fall on the taxpayer. However, we will look to deregulate where possible and, where regulation is needed, to reduce the burden.

The third question concerned the revival of licences. I imagine that by “applications”, the noble Lord means reinstatement of transfers. The estimate is 494 to 658 additional revivals of licences per year.

I thank the Committee on behalf of the House for having scrutinised the order. I can give assurances that we treat this matter with all seriousness. I am sure that any future licensing legislation will be the subject of lively debate and that there will be further discussions on this subject. I am sure that noble Lords recognise the positive benefits of this measure and its importance. As Walter Bagehot said in 1867:

“The natural impulse of the English people is to resist authority”.

I trust that, in these circumstances, that will not be the case. I commend the order to the Committee and welcome the furthering of the recommendations.