Business and Planning Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Of course my hon. Friend makes an important point, but I think local authorities will understand that it is in their self-interest to ensure that businesses can open and that high streets flourish. I certainly encourage businesses to look at the guidance and adhere to it.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my borough, licensed premises are a very important part of the local economy, and we work with local residents to support them. This measure, with seven days’ notice, allows an enormous amount of off-sales, which are already causing havoc in my constituency with people defecating, urinating and leaving problems in parks. People are talking about fake Glastonbury. This is going to cost my borough a lot of money to police. We are not party poopers, but we do not want the other sort of pooping, either. Will the Secretary of State make provision to allow councils some discretion where there is a particular problem with a licensed premises causing antisocial behaviour?

[Alok Sharma]

Ultimately, it is possible to revoke these permissions, and expedited processes have been put in place. Nobody wants to see bad behaviour, but this is a 10-day process, and there is an opportunity in the first five working days for anyone to put in their views to the local authority. Ultimately, the local authority decides. There is also a clear requirement that a legible notice is put up at the premises, so anyone who is in the locality will be able to see it when they pass by, and they can make representations if they wish. These new measures will cut the time to receive approval for this licence from an average of 42 working days to just 10 working days, and the application fee is capped at £100.

Public safety and access for disabled people using pavements is of course absolutely vital, so I can confirm that local authorities will be able to refuse or revoke licences where appropriate. The Government will be publishing minimum requirements and guidance for footway widths and distances required for access by disabled people.

[Alok Sharma]

I can confirm that we have engaged with disability groups in the preparation of the clauses in this Bill.

We will also be making changes to alcohol licensing. Currently, any licensee wishing to add off-the-premises sales permission has to apply for a licence variation. This takes time, with a 28-day notice period, adverts placed, and sometimes a hearing. Ordinarily, of course, that is necessary. However, hospitality businesses are not operating in ordinary economic times, as we all acknowledge, so the Government are temporarily changing the process. Under the measures in this Bill, most licences will automatically and temporarily be extended to include off-the-premises sales. However, there are safeguards in place. The extension will not include premises that have been denied off-sales permission or had it removed within the past three years. Taken together, these measures will help our hospitality industry to get back to business over the busy summer months.

[Meg Hillier]

Has the right hon. Gentleman given any thought to allowing a review of this Bill, because—I am particularly talking about the hospitality industry—it will be coming into operation over a busy summer period, and we will see the effects of that? If he were to agree to a three-month review period where we, as a House, can see the evidence and then, if necessary, amend legislation, that would be a welcome step.

[Alok Sharma]

First, these are of course temporary measures. A 90-day rolling review, which I think the hon. Lady is proposing, would undermine the certainty that we are giving businesses in terms of these particular measures. She will know, however, that should the Government wish to extend any of the measures, they will be subject to made affirmative or draft affirmative procedures, so they will come before the House before there is any opportunity to extend them further.

I now return to the issue of trying to get the construction sector moving. In 2018, this sector represented almost 9% of our GDP. Lockdown has had a profound impact on construction sites across the country. We estimate that almost 1,200 unimplemented major residential planning permissions, with capacity to deliver over 60,000 homes, have lapsed or will lapse between the start of lockdown on 23 March and 31 December this year. Therefore, the Bill introduces powers to extend these planning permissions and listed building consents to 1 April 2021. This will be automatic for permissions that have not lapsed at the point that these measures come into force. Lapsed permissions can be reinstated and can benefit from the same extension, but subject to necessary environmental approvals.

We will also make it quicker for developers to apply for longer construction site working hours. This will help to facilitate safe working—for example, by staggering workers’ hours—and to make up for lost progress. Applications will be concluded within 14 days. This measure does not apply to applications from individual householders. Local authorities retain discretion and can refuse applications where there would be an unacceptable impact. Again, this is a temporary measure. Extended hours can only last up until 1 April 2021, unless extended by secondary legislation.

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[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

May I start by thanking the Business Secretary for the constructive conversations that he and I have had on the Bill? As he knows, we support the measures contained in it.

The wider context to this Bill is the economic crisis that we face, the scale of which we have not seen for a very long time. As an Opposition, we have tried to work constructively with Government. Indeed, we have welcomed a number of steps that the Government have taken. We called for the furlough scheme and indeed have welcomed it, though we believe that too many people remain excluded from support. We called for the 100% underwriting of Government-backed loans, and we have welcomed the bounce back loans, too. We have also supported the Government on the difficult decision to move from 2 metres to 1 metre-plus where 2 metres cannot be observed, although we do have concerns about the test, track and trace system.

I hope that we can agree that the past few months have shown the power of Government to step in and protect jobs and businesses at a time of crisis. My case today is that that power has not gone away, and neither has the need for it to be exercised. The Government must not shrink from that, because, let us be clear, we are not at the end of this economic crisis, but just at the beginning of it.

Let me deal first with the provisions in the Bill. It is a short Bill and there is a large degree of agreement on it. The headline provisions, as the Secretary of State has said, will enable the hospitality industry to reopen quickly and serve a greater number of customers in a safe environment. We welcome the temporary loosening of planning regulations to enable bars, restaurants and cafés to serve customers outside their premises. I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) has made about the need for some caution here. It is important that local authorities continue to have discretion in these matters because they are best placed to make the judgments about the local impacts. It is also right to put on record the concerns of the shop workers’ union, USDAW, which has worried about the safety of staff. The guidance is very clear about the mitigation and reduction of risk that is needed if 1 metre-plus is in place, and I am sure the Secretary of State agrees that that is really important, and that it is also very important that the Health & Safety Executive takes a tough line in enforcing safety as well.

We also welcome the measures in enabling construction sites to get back to work more easily through extended working hours. Again, and I am sure that Members across the House will agree with me, it is in the interests of local residents that local authorities have discretion in these matters.

[Meg Hillier]

I think we agree about the need for local authorities to have discretion, but they also need resources. In my borough, we have more than 1,300 licensed premises in a very small area of London, and a lot of licensing officers are needed just to deal with the flow of applications. Does my right hon. Friend not think that the Government need to address that?

[Edward Miliband]

My hon. Friend in her customary eloquent way anticipates my next point. We have seen—and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the shadow Secretary of State for local government, for giving me the exact figures—£10 billion of costs loaded on to local authorities during this crisis, and only £3.2 billion provided by Government, despite the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government saying that the Government would stand behind councils and give them the funding they need. We have another Bill that puts yet more pressure on local authorities, but with no clear plan about how they will be reimbursed, and our new clause 5 speaks to that issue.

We also welcome the changes to transport licensing and the removal of the unfair relationship provision in the Consumer Credit Act to ensure that bounce-back loans are more easily accessed.  I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the detailed discussions that we had about that particular provision.

Those are the main provisions of the Bill and, as I said, there is cross-party agreement on them. Obviously, there will be detailed discussions in Committee. However, I have to say to the Secretary of State and the House that we are under an illusion if we think that the measures in this Bill will go much of the way towards addressing the crisis that we face: 4 July represents a reopening of pubs and restaurants, but it does not represent recovery.

It is important to note that many sections of our economy employing hundreds of thousands of people, including gyms, leisure centres, live entertainment venues, beauty salons, conference facilities, night clubs and swimming pools, will still not be able to open for public health reasons. We support those public health decisions. Other parts of our economy will open only with severe restrictions, including large parts of our hospitality industry, which employs 3 million people or one in 10 of the whole workforce. The British Beer and Pub Association says that 25% of pubs will not be able to reopen even at 1 metre. The Government themselves acknowledge, in the scientific assessment of the change to 1 metre, that the hospitality industry will lose 25% to 40% of its revenue even at 1 metre distancing. That revenue translates into a risk to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Live performance remains prohibited, which affects the theatre sector, employing 290,000 people. Manufacturers, too, are reeling from the fall in domestic and worldwide demand.

I say all that not to cast doubt on the public health measures being taken or to speak against the Bill, but to point to the wider context, which is that the Government are taking a one-size-fits-all approach to the furlough, for example, demanding an employer contribution from August and a cliff edge at the end of October. The shadow business Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), received this letter from a venue in Manchester in the past week: 

“As the Government furlough scheme draws to a close, I will be making very difficult decisions this week so that I can give notice during the period of 80% furlough contribution to commence a redundancy consultation with the majority of my venue staff. With zero income and no appropriate financial Government support, I have no choice but to make these decisions.”

We are not asking the impossible of Government; we are saying, “Look at what other countries are doing”, whether that is Spain, Italy, New Zealand, France or Germany. They are taking a sectoral approach to the furlough. They are saying that specific sectors are more affected by the public health measures and that, therefore, the economic measures have to match that.

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[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell). He may be surprised to discover that between Sedgefield and Shoreditch there is a bigger connection than he might imagine and that we might be on the same side on tackling the issue of broadband, because my constituency, like his, has notspots, even in the heart of what some people call Tech City. So we can perhaps work together on that. I am also a supporter of relocating Government departments outside London, championing it when I was in government, so we have two points in common. In other ways we may be hammer and tongs against each other, but we can find the points of agreement, and if we disagree, let us disagree well. He was right to pay tribute to Phil Wilson and to describe him as magnanimous. Phil is a good, kind, thoughtful and wise men, and it was a real mark of the man that despite losing Sedgefield to the other party, he did not take defeat badly. It is noble of the hon. Gentleman to acknowledge that.

I want to focus on the Bill’s clauses relating to hospitality. Before doing so, I wish to stress that my borough of Hackney is very pro-enterprise. We support it to such an extent that we have more than 1,300 licensed premises in a 19 square mile borough; we are the third most densely populated borough in London, and there has been a 66% growth in the number of premises since 2006. So this is something we have been pushing, and I pay tribute to the many exciting and interesting entrepreneurs who have set up businesses. In one ward alone, Hackney Central, we have five microbreweries. So this is a great place to come to drink, party and have fun, but we have always tried to balance that, for the most part, with the needs of residents. I worry that with this Bill the balance is shifting so far one way that we will rue the day, in a few months’ time, when we see what residents have had to put up with.

I need to describe what our local residents are already putting up with. We may have had lockdown, but businesses have been able to sell off the premises in open containers, and some of my local parks, notably those without boundaries—London Fields, Well Street Common and others—have become party places. They have not just become party places for people having a responsible, quiet drink in a gathering with friends, within the social distancing rules. I am afraid to say that we are talking about people who have no regard for other people, and who have defecated and urinated in the parks, and in people’s doorways and stairwells. People are having to scrub down their front doors and remove human excrement to get out of their house cleanly. That is not acceptable, and it is not down to the shortcomings of the local authority or the police.

The volume has been so great that this has been very difficult to keep on top of. The police are receiving complaints about antisocial behaviour, with about 70 to 90 on a sunny weekend, depending on the day. The local authority noise patrols and wardens are out in force doing what they can, but they are simply outnumbered. Fines have been issued, and more than 100 of the 193 issued were to people from outside the borough, be they from south London or as far away as Bishop’s Stortford or St Albans. We welcome people to Hackney— we want people to come to support our vibrant businesses —but they need to have some personal responsibility. My fear about this Bill is that it rushes through one of the most radical changes in licensing laws in a matter of a couple of hours this evening, with a handful of Members engaged. The Bill was unveiled only on Thursday and we had until Wednesday, or until today, to make amendments—this is going very fast.

I wish to refer to a couple of clauses. Clause 3 deals with the determination of applications, with subsection (3) setting out what happens at

“the end of the public consultation period.”

The business has to put in an application to the council, and the day after that it is deemed as received. This is deemed as being the start of the public consultation. Ten days later, at the end of that period,

“the local authority may—

(a) grant a pavement licence to the applicant, or

(b) reject the application.”

Of course if there is a public concern, the application can be looked at again, but subsection (8) states:

“If the local authority does not make a determination under subsection (3) by the end of the determination period, the licence for which the application was made is deemed to be granted by the authority to the applicant.”

We are quite willing to support businesses with looking at extended licences and so on—that happens all the time in my borough. But with some 1,330 licensed premises, the pace at which this is going means that there will not be enough resources in Hackney Council, or in any council in the country unless there are few licensed premises in the area, to deal with the onslaught of licence applications.

The clause is very much in favour of business, and of course I am in favour of businesses getting support, but we need to ensure that we get a balance. The Secretary of State talked about limits—for example, a premises that has had problems or an application for an off licence refused in the past three years is not eligible, but that has not happened to many businesses. A lot of businesses will be applying for the first time because of the peculiar and difficult circumstances of covid-19.

An obligation on the business to deliver a restrained service is missing. Such a service is difficult to control because once people are spilling out of a premises on to the pavements and into car parks, it does not take much to spill further into our parks and create more of the nuisance that we have seen recently, to the real detriment of residents.

For some, this may be a dilemma, but for me it is about getting the balance between what is right for residents and what is right for business. The Bill goes far over the line to support business. Yes, it is a difficult time, but there are not enough safeguards for local councils and not enough resources. The Government need to provide the resources to councils such as mine and that of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), whose constituency must have even more licensed premises than Hackney South and Shoreditch and the borough of Hackney, so that they can cope. That is difficult to do. They cannot rustle up licensing officers with the right experience in the time available. The Government also need to give powers to councils where there has been antisocial behaviour so that there is a quicker way of withdrawing a licence.

We have to get the balance right. Of course we want things to return to normal as soon and as safely as possible, but the Bill will create other problems. I am sure that the Minister does not need me to remind him that one of the challenges of becoming a Minister is the unintended consequences element of the work. A Minister makes a decision and officials say that they have checked everything, it is all great, everyone has looked at it, but there is one little bit that perhaps they have not thought through fully. That usually connects the decision to life out there in the real world. The Minister is very welcome to visit my constituency—we might even go for a socially distant drink in a responsible establishment—but the reality in my part of the world right now is not pleasant. It has become a party place and it has been very difficult, almost impossible, for the council to keep on top of.

I urge the Government to reconsider the matter and think about any safeguards, support and succour they can give local authorities. I am not a party pooper. I support enterprise and the licensed premises in Hackney, but there must be a balance. Any measure must not be to the detriment of residents who have had to put up with the fouling and bad behaviour of recent weeks and months.

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[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

May I add my congratulations to the two new Members have made their maiden speeches, the hon. Members for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) and for Sedgefield (Paul Howell)? I recall that when I made mine, I harked back to the wars of the roses, so I feel somewhat outdone by the hon. Lady’s references to the ice age.

From my conversations with local businesses over the last few weeks, it is clear that the coronavirus has affected different businesses in different ways. Many have been able to continue their services across digital channels, and to expand or diversify their offering to new and existing customers. Food and drink stores have been able to continue trading, and some have even seen sales increases, as people have had more time for shopping and cooking. Other forms of retail, such as books, music and clothing, have been able to maintain some level of sales via online shopping and delivery. I have been really impressed by the ingenuity of our business community and the way they have responded to this crisis. I have a great deal of confidence that, in this nation of shopkeepers, we will continue to respond to the challenges of the post-lockdown world.

There is one sector, however, that has been badly hit by the lockdown and continues to face enormous challenges in its ability to revive—our hospitality sector. Encompassing cafés, restaurants, pubs, events, tourism and accommodation, it exists to bring people together, to encourage contact and to promote social gathering. They are facing an existential threat from a new world that needs people to keep their distance from each other.

I cautiously welcome the Government’s moves to lift restrictions on people visiting pubs, cafés and restaurants, although, like many of my constituents, I remain anxious about how this can be achieved while maintaining social distancing guidelines. This virus remains far from beaten, and I am dismayed at the mixed messages from the Government about how people should conduct themselves in the face of what is still a major threat both to our health and to the economy. We would face the future with more confidence if we had an effective system for tracking, tracing and isolating future diagnosed infections, and the lack of such a system constitutes a major risk to the effective functioning of our whole economy.

In that context, the Liberal Democrats welcome the provisions in today’s Bill. In particular, the provisions to ease the process for cafés and restaurants to apply for permission to provide pavement seating are very much to be welcomed. It will give many businesses the flexibility they need to open back up, while adhering to social distancing guidelines.

I particularly welcome the fact that councils are to continue to play a major part in the granting of such licences. In many parts of the country and in many town centres, our hospitality businesses play a major role in the local economy. To encourage that economy, councils can play a major part in reconfiguring our town centres to enable more pavement seating—closing roads to motor traffic and introducing pedestrianised areas, for example—which can support businesses in meeting the conditions of their licences.

Can the Government confirm that they intend to include mobile catering units in their plans? Many of these micro-businesses are missing out on their regular trade at festivals this year, and would benefit from the boost to business that being able to set up in a town centre could give them. We also support the powers given to councils to vary the terms of licences.

While we are all keen to see our hospitality sector given this essential support, it does not come without costs. I really want to echo the point made by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), because we have seen many of the same problems in Richmond and Kingston, and it is really appalling and a huge burden on local residents. Local residents may experience additional nuisance, for example, from strong lighting and noise later in the evening, and also an increase in antisocial behaviour after closing time. Additional pavement furniture may cause accessibility issues for those in wheelchairs or those who are partially sighted. It is to be welcomed that councils will have the power to judge each application on its own merits and to apply its own acceptability criteria. It is also welcome that these changes are temporary. Short-term changes to support local business owners during this difficult time are more likely to be welcomed by our local communities than permanent changes that threaten to cause a long-term nuisance.

In the same vein, we support the changes to allow businesses with an on-site licence to convert to an off-site licence, but we have some concerns about the overall provision for off-site licences. Like many areas of the country, Richmond and Kingston have needed police interventions to disperse large crowds who have gathered on our open spaces to drink and play loud music. This has led to considerable antisocial behaviour, including drunkenness, public urination and drug taking. Local residents and police report that they have not seen antisocial behaviour on this scale before, and it is causing considerable distress to residents affected.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Lady is describing very delicately, I have to say, the reality of what this is like when you are living through it. Does she not think that the Government need to recognise that we want businesses to be supported, but the cost to councils, and to the police, of enforcing this and managing antisocial behaviour will be huge?

[Sarah Olney]

I am really glad that the hon. Lady has made that point. I have had lots of conversations with both the local council and the local police. It is clear that for suburban boroughs such as mine in London, where the Met police have, quite rightly, violence reduction as their priority when it comes to targeting their resources, the resources are simply not there to pay for the neighbourhood policing that we need to be able to keep on top of this kind of menace to our local residents. It is a really important point. I take this opportunity to press once more for further funding for neighbourhood officers in the outer boroughs in London, because that is a really urgent priority.

From my conversations locally, it appears that, by and large, our licensed premises are behaving responsibly in their provision of off sales and that a lot of the problem is coming from supermarkets promoting the purchase of alcohol in large quantities. There is a debate to be had about whether this is ever a good idea, but during a pandemic when people are being instructed not to gather in large groups, it is completely irresponsible. Supermarkets were quick to introduce limits on a number of toilet rolls or bags of pasta that customers could buy at the beginning of the lockdown, and they ought to do the same for alcohol now. If they do not act reasonably in this regard, councils ought to be able to take action, in the face of threats of large gatherings and antisocial behaviour, to require shops to restrict their alcohol sales. These increased powers to councils, while welcome, will come at a cost, as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch pointed out, and there should be greater financial assistance to councils to enable them to administer, review and enforce the new licensing regime.

We cautiously welcome the extension to hours that can be worked on a construction site, but support the discretion granted to local councils to restrict those hours in residential areas. Building work is one of the chief sources of nuisance in residential areas, and that nuisance is compounded when people are spending many more hours at home. We also welcome the extension of planning consents already granted. It will save local authorities a great deal of time and money not to have to review planning consents already granted that may have expired during the lockdown. However, in acknowledging that construction has been delayed for many developments, the Government also need to consider that local authority housing targets will also have been put at risk, and they should look again at any proposed sanctions against local authorities in this regard.

In summary, we support this Bill principally because it recognises the important role of local authorities in supporting our local businesses and safeguarding our local communities. This Government place too much faith in technological solutions, whether for their doomed contact-tracing app or as a way to make the Irish border magically disappear, so it is reassuring to see that they still recognise the value of local leadership and decision making in meeting the health and economic challenges of this pandemic.