Business and Planning Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend in sport, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, gave a powerful speech on the implications of this Bill for sports clubs, so I will amend what I was going to say and focus on the detail behind his thesis, with which I fully agree. As many noble Lords have said, the purpose of the Bill is to introduce measures to help businesses adjust to new ways of working as the country recovers from the disruption caused by Covid-19. The measures support the transition from immediate crisis response and lockdown into recovery and getting the economy moving again. The measures support businesses to implement safer ways of working to manage the ongoing risks from Covid-19, particularly the need for social distancing. It is an approach which, conceptually, was supported by direct financial support for the arts this morning, which was welcomed by all. We desperately need the same for sport, especially clubs that do not benefit from the professionalism of the top level of sport.

Clause 11 is designed to amend the Licensing Act 2003 and associated regulations, to allow licensed premises to serve alcohol for takeaways while being open for on-site delivery at the same time. This is designed to allow pubs to make up revenue lost as a result of social distancing restrictions. However, the Act also applies to club premises certificates. These alcohol sales licences are slightly different; they apply largely to sports club bars and social clubs. The legislation before us explicitly excludes these venues and does not allow them to make the same changes as pubs. This can be seen in the table on page 16 of the Bill, which shows that club premises licences are specifically not included. This means that sports club bars and social clubs will not be allowed to sell takeaway alcohol, despite facing the very same revenue-losing restrictions as pubs.

The Royal Yachting Association predicts that 95% of its club bars have a club premises certificate, and as such, will lose revenue. The RFU, referred to by my noble friend in sport, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is also concerned that a great number of rugby clubs will face the same problems. Given the losses that grass roots sports clubs have been facing and the continued cessation of activity for many of those clubs, including cricket clubs, it seems wholly unfair to penalise them further when their bars are allowed to open.

I hope that this explanation is helpful to the Minister, to whom I gave advance notice. We are asking the Government to look again and include club premises certificates in the Bill. If not, we could see the loss of a number of sports clubs up and down the country, and in that context, I look forward to the Minister’s reply.