Business and Planning Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 11 in the name of my noble friend Lord Balfe. Clause 3(2) states:

“Before making a determination in respect of the application”


for a pavement licence,

“the local authority must … take into account any representation made to it … consult the highway authority … and other persons as the local authority may consider appropriate.”

I support having input from the people and organisations stated, but I feel that it is necessary for the local police to be consulted in making a determination.

To reiterate what I said at Second Reading, I welcome the Bill, which will trigger the revitalisation of our businesses and help the well-being of the people. As a businessman, I would like the economy to pick up and create employment for all the people who have been idle for the last few months. However, my concern is the safety of staff and the nuisances and disturbances caused on pavements and streets and in neighbourhoods. Before the pandemic, we saw young men and women misbehaving and fighting in the streets on Friday and Saturday nights. I used to see this happening when driving through towns at night. My concern is that people have been frustrated over the last few months and that the relaxation of the rules will lead to social problems.

When the problems of anti-social behaviour arise, they will be dealt with by the police on the spot. Local police know the hot spots in their areas where problems are likely to flare up. To alleviate the issues and possible problems, we need consultation and input from local police when an application is made for a pavement licence. I appreciate that the police have powers to issue closure notices, but this is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is therefore important that the police are consulted before the problems arise.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my interests in the register and apologise to the Committee for not having been able to speak at Second Reading.

I welcome and accept the Government’s objective of getting the hospitality sector moving, and we should not underestimate the wider impact on the economy if that sector does not revive. Speaking personally, despite the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, I would welcome a shift towards a café culture society and away from the focus on binge drinking and vertical drinking establishments. However, this move should be achieved with local consent and neighbourhood support, where the parameters can be properly policed and enforced. That is why Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, is so important. The views of local police must be sought on whether the proposed arrangements being considered in a locality are in practice workable and sustainable from a policing perspective. This raises a wider question: will the police be adequately resourced to manage what may be a more volatile street scene? What has the National Police Chiefs’ Council said about this? I observe that the extra officers the Government have promised will certainly not be available this summer.

An interesting and separate point is raised by Amendment 44, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, on digital age verification. It is extraordinary that the Government have been so slow in encouraging digital age verification. I declare that, for a year or two, I was associated with a company developing such a digital solution. The problem was, and remains, that licensees are required to inspect a physical document with holographic authentication. This means that teenagers routinely take their passports and driving licences with them on a night out, many of which are then lost. Digital age authentication, based on mobile phones, is not only possible but far more practical. When will the Government act on this?

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[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I wonder what she might have said had she mentioned the Government’s proposals on electric scooters in the context of the problems of disabled people, or of those with visual impairments. It seems to me that they are going to exacerbate some of the problems we are talking about.

The amendments in this group deal with the nature of public consultation. Amendment 6 in particular, to which I have added my name, tightens up the expectations on local authorities. As I understand the Bill as drafted, it would be sufficient for a local authority simply to put the details on a notice stuck in the window of the town hall. The amendment, however, would require that those details be in a form accessible to the residents affected. I would like to see local authorities expected to consult directly with the residents in the immediate vicinity of some of these proposed licence changes.

Amendment 6 would also properly allow seven days for residents to register their objections or raise concerns. That seems to me to be a minimum. Seven days is a very short time under any circumstances, but, unless these subsections are strengthened, most residents in the immediate vicinity of a premises for which these changes are intended will never hear about them until they have been agreed, and probably not until the extra pavement furniture appears; until the extra noise starts; until the extra singing starts; and until the yobs start urinating and defecating on their properties. I assume that the Minister does not wish to be regarded as the Minister responsible for people doing that in others’ front gardens—but that is the danger, unless there is a proper degree of consultation, and people have the opportunity to raise their concerns. Amendment 6 is very modest, and I trust the Minister will accept it.

Amendment 17 is also very modest. If the new pavement use turns out to make it difficult for people with disabilities, or others such as parents with pushchairs and young people, to navigate the pavement, the local authority must speedily visit and assess the situation. If there is a problem, the pavement licence should be revoked. Social distancing already requires people on many pavements to step into the road to get past each other. It is clearly more difficult if you are blind, in a wheelchair, or simply pushing a double buggy with another child in tow. If you have to navigate a group of inebriated and boisterous young men—and it will often be young men—on the pavement, it is far worse. Under such circumstances, not only is consultation needed but an inspection of how the arrangements work in practice. How far do the pavement tables extend? In practice, on whichever model the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was talking about, how much leeway do the groups standing around leave for those passing by? Again, I trust that the Minister will accept this amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, with his detailed knowledge of local rules. However, I wish to emphasise the importance of balance, and to remind noble Lords that these are temporary measures. We must not get bound up in regulatory amendments, however justified these might be for permanent laws. We have to get the economy and our high streets going again and allow vibrancy to return to our bars and pubs. Our hospitality sector has been decimated and it needs all the help it can get.

There are safeguards: there is scope for suspending licensing conditions for up to three months, or removing permission for sales of alcohol for consumption off the premises. There are quite onerous requirements for Covid-19 risk assessments prepared in consultation with employees and unions. There are also various forms of guidance which, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Blencathra, can contain anomalies. But the economy needs to open up. Bars and pubs must be part of the revival and regeneration, whether by young people, tourists or those of us at a more stately stage of life. The Local Government Association has, rightly, supported the Bill, including pavement licensing freedoms, and we need to get on with turning it into law.

Finally, I did not get a chance to say so, but I will be returning to digital verification on Report, as there is more to be done—and quickly.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson [V]]

My Lords, I have nothing further to add on this amendment at this time.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My lords, I have put my name to Amendments 15, 16 19, 22 and 23. The Bill allows applications for a pavement licence, and it says that they are deemed to have been approved if the local authority has not determined the matter within seven days. That approval then lasts until September 2021. This is not a temporary fix; it is quite a long-term fix. I think most local residents will find it pretty extraordinary that if, by default, something has not been considered or determined by the local authority, it will stand until September next year. These are the people who will be directly, and potentially, very adversely, affected by the outcome.

Clause 2(7) says that the clock starts from the day on which the application is “sent” to the local authority. I am not sure that many people will send such applications by post, but the difference between the date sent and the date received is potentially significant. Why does the Bill not specify that the time limit runs from the receipt of application?

Amendment 15 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, limits such an automatic approval of a licence to September of this year. That would no doubt meet the requirements in the remarks that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is about to make, and it would allow something to happen now. However, it would also mean that the matter could be reviewed in due time, and I would have thought this was a modest amendment that must make sense.

In my view, Amendment 16 goes to the heart of these issues. These determinations should—and, in my view, must—take account of the consultation with those who are going to be affected by them. Like me, the Minister has been a council leader. I doubt whether, in his time in this role, he would have been very happy not to consider or take account of the views of local residents affected by a proposal. I know that, sometimes, matters of high politics might mean that you wish to override them, but most of the time you will want to listen to local residents and to those who are going to be directly inconvenienced by the changes that you are agreeing. You will want to listen to those who are going to be adversely affected by noise or any rowdyism and anti-social behaviour, and to those who are going to be affected because people are—and I will use the phrase that I used in a previous group of amendments—urinating and defecating on their property. Let us not pretend it will not happen; that is what will happen, particularly in the absence of proper policing resources and local authority enforcement resources.

I ask the Minister again: what are the estimated extra costs that local authorities will face in their enforcement role to manage these changes and what will be the cost of extra policing? That is why my noble friend Lady Wilcox of Newport’s amendment is so important. Clause 5(6) gives the Secretary of State the power to publish conditions for pavement licences. Will local authorities and their associations be consulted about those conditions? Will they be given the enforcement resources they need? Again, what guarantees are there that the police will have the officers to ensure that suitable order is maintained as a result of the licences?

Finally, I have signed Amendments 22 and 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which acknowledge that, as a result of these licences, people will spill over into the highway or be forced to do so to get around those availing themselves of what is provided. Public safety may require that parking and speed limits be adjusted. That would require the highway authority, which may well not be the same as the local authority, to make adjustments. Similarly, transport operators—those running the bus services—may have to alter their schedules or make minor adjustments to routes to ensure that people are safe. The amendments would require that such discussions took place. Again, they seem modest, and I hope that the Minister can accept them.

[Baroness Noakes]

My Lords, I hesitate to be predictable; the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has partly predicted what I will say. I am concerned that some of the amendments will make the process of applying for a licence more difficult and the process of getting one unattractive. In particular, if an automatic licence is granted for a very short time, it is of no real use to a hospitality business, which will probably have to invest in further tables and chairs and so on to operate outside, because not all can move outside the tables that they have inside. The amendments work against the spirit of the Bill, which is to try to get the economy going again.

We should not embellish the Bill with lots of extra things that have to be taken into account. There are already significant powers for local authorities to deal with these applications. Local authorities may have to get a bit more agile and deal with applications a bit more quickly than they have in the past. My impression of local government, never having been closely involved in it, is that it is not very agile. I will probably get into trouble with my husband when I get home because he chairs a planning committee, sits on a licensing committee and probably would not recognise my characterisation of lack of agility, but in these difficult times local authorities should be prepared to get a move on and do whatever they need to do to protect their local residents. They do not need any changes to this Bill to do so.