| Licensing Bill [Lords]
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Dr. Howells: I assure the hon. Gentleman that if I never see another letter on this issue, I shall be more than glad. Mr. Moss: I do not consider that to be a very sympathetic response. The industry has long agreed to the split in licensing; if we go back far enough, we shall find that it probably suggested the concept in the first place. It also recognises that the personal licence holder would need to be known to the authorities, and Column Number: 259 that the information needs to be registered somewhere. It therefore has no quarrel—nor do we—with the need to identify and register the premises supervisor.We disagree with the Minister about the support of the linkage to the premises licence through the requirement to regard the change of licensee as a variation of the premises licence, and, following on from that, the requirement to write the name of the designated premises supervisor into that premises licence. That is incredibly bureaucratic. Has the hon. Gentleman had any communication with the Better Regulation Task Force? Has he written to that organisation? Did he ask its views? If it has responded, perhaps he will share its views with the Committee—or if it has used its own initiative and made its views known, will the hon. Gentleman tell us what they are? What are the views of the Small Business Service, which is part of the Department of Trade and Industry, about the regulations that are required? The premises licence should be a stand-alone licence. It is concerned primarily with the suitability of particular premises to provide alcohol and/or public entertainment at the times and under the conditions granted to it. That must stand irrespective of the personal licensee, who we accept has the duty and responsibility to uphold the terms of the licence and the law. The consequences of the linkages that the Government have set out in the Bill can be seen as a series of obligations. The name of the designated premises supervisor must be given at the time of the application for a new licence. That person will not always be identified at the time of the application. For example, a supermarket chain that wants to obtain a licence may not even appoint the relevant manager until near the opening day. The identity of the person who will be responsible for the licence should make no difference to the application for a premises licence, so long as he or she is qualified professionally under the Bill to undertake such duties. When the new licensee is ready to commence business, it would be a simple matter to notify the police and the licensing authority of the identity of the personal licence holder, who is designated as the premises supervisor. Such matters are set out in new clause 2. The second problem is that under the Bill, the premises licence must be altered each time there is a change of manager. That can happen frequently in larger businesses where managers move around constantly for career development and other reasons. Currently, about 155,000 premises hold an alcohol licence. In many of those businesses the turnover of staff is high—much higher than in many other businesses. Even if we pluck out of the air a 10 per cent. turnover figure, it means that in 15,500 cases a variation in the premises licence will be triggered by a movement of personnel, which means a rigmarole of applications to the local licensing authority, and the associated costs. The industry, and most other people, were happy with the White Paper when it was drafted. For the purpose of my argument, I shall read out the relevant Column Number: 260 paragraph to the Committee. Paragraph 43, on page 23, states:
as we mentioned in a previous debate, that was dealt with in the same chapter of the White Paper—
this is critical—
3.30 pmA little later, paragraph 44 says:
Whoever wrote that was offering a practical and sensible way forward. The industry accepts that advice, as do we, so why on earth, in the gestation period between the publishing of the White Paper and the coming to fruition of the Bill, has there been such a huge increase in bureaucracy? [Interruption.] The Minister scoffs, or perhaps laughs—I am not sure which. We are talking about deregulating, yet here is what we will be doing under parts of the Bill—I am sorry, the markings on my Bill look like a St. Andrew's cross; I did not mean any offence to any Scots here. New clause 2 would take away whole clauses on this subject, to replace them with a couple of subsections that simply say what was intended in the White Paper: that when a change occurs, the new personal licence holder will notify the various authorities. We have set that out in new clause 2, and for the Committee's delectation, I shall read it out:
That leaps over the police's objection that they need to know that the premises licence holder knows who the designated premises supervisor is. Such a licence should be served
The new clause then goes on to cover other aspects. We believe that the requirement to serve notice achieves all the Government's aims in bringing forward the concept of a designated premises supervisor. We accept that that concept was not in the White Paper, and that the police want a named person—but new clause 2 gets round that difficulty. We also suggest in the new clause that the name of the Column Number: 261 supervisor should be displayed prominently on the premises, so that if the police turn up they know exactly who that person is, and can take action pretty well immediately.It is time that the Government took notice of the arguments on the subject. I hope that the Minister will make at least some movement towards our position—although the fact that he would lose some six clauses and two schedules might make him think that doing so would not look too good on his record. Dr. Howells: That is nothing. Mr. Moss: I am delighted to hear it. I am aware that Labour members of the Committee, too, particularly the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), are interested in the clause. Perhaps he has had a session of ringing round this lunchtime, as he did earlier in the week, or perhaps he has had lunch and moved up a rung on the ladder this time? Undoubtedly he will speak on those matters himself. We understand that representatives of the police, who are in regular contact with the Minister and his team about these matters, are also happy with the proposals. Therefore, all this extra legislation and bureaucracy is unnecessary. The police are now satisfied that a way forward can be found that is sensible, practical and does away with all this bureaucracy, and cost, because it is costly to business and the licensing authorities to have 15,000 or 20,000 variations to deal with in any given year. We are interested to hear what the Minister has to say and we reserve our right to press this amendment to a Division if that is necessary. Nick Harvey (North Devon): I endorse the case that the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire made. He did so in sensible terms. He is right that the formula in the Bill is unnecessarily bureaucratic, that it cannot serve the interests of deregulation or better regulation, and that the original intention as laid out in the White Paper was a better way of handling these issues. There is no point in elaborately rehearsing that case because the hon. Gentleman has done so more than adequately. He is right and I look forward to hearing the Minister's remarks. Mr. John Grogan (Selby): I wish to make a brief, helpful, post-lunch contribution to the cause of Her Majesty's Government. The case has been put well, but I have a couple of points. Why does it matter that we get this relatively technical point right and the matters arising from the previous debate on registering interests, by spending time on trying to achieve consensus? It matters because this will be a massive change in our licensing system and if we can get consensus it is worth going that extra mile to do so. Achieving a system where the police, local government, tenants and the industry all agree is a prize worth aiming for. That is why I put some effort into doing that. We are tantalisingly close to achieving that. There are two main objections to the Opposition's new Column Number: 262 clauses. One of them is the attitude of the police. They have now made it clear that they have no objection in principle to a notification or registration system rather than one that requires changing the premises licence or a schedule to that licence every time the designated premises supervisor changes.
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