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Clause 7
Theft, loss etc. of certificate or summary
6 pm
Mr. Moss: I beg to move amendment No. 331, in
clause 77, page 44, line 34, leave out 'lost or'.
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The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 332, in
clause 77, page 44, line 34, leave out 'loss or'.
Mr. Moss: These amendments will be quick to deal with. I cannot quite understand why clause 77(3)(b) gives as a condition that where a certificate or summary has been lost, the club must report that loss to the police. I can understand the need to report the theft of such a document, but if it is lost, what is the point of that? Will it waste police time? How many forms will the sergeant on the desk or the constable visiting the club have to fill in? In the end, what does it prove? How will it move us further towards establishing whether the club has a genuine certificate and who is responsible for its not being available?
I have tabled the amendment to tease from the Minister why he considers it absolutely necessary for a loss to be reported to the police. The fact that a document is lost might not emerge for years, and that document might have passed through the hands of any number of secretaries. If so, pinning the blame will be almost impossible. It would be a complete irrelevance for that loss to be reported to the police after a period of years. They would not do anything about it; people report all sorts of losses—and thefts—to the police and get absolutely nowhere. I cannot see the justification for this piece of bureaucracy. It will simply tie up police time unnecessarily.
Dr. Howells: As the hon. Gentleman has told us, the amendment would remove the requirement in the Bill to notify the police of the loss of a club premises certificate. The amendments would be detrimental to the Bill for a number of reasons, and I shall list some of them.
The Bill contains an offence of failure to produce a certificate without reasonable excuse. When the police make such a request, a club that is unable for whatever reason to lay its hands on the certificate might first claim that it is lost. It would therefore be to the club's own benefit to report such a loss to the police at the first possible instance so that that can be recorded and the club's risk of being susceptible to committing that offence correspondingly reduced.
In addition, unscrupulous individuals who acquire a lost certificate might doctor it and use it to carry on qualifying club activities, so such a loss is something about which the police should know. There are many reasons why unscrupulous club operators may wish to possess two club premises certificates. For example, they may wish to protect against conditions that might be imposed by future reviews. The requirement to notify the police of the loss of a certificate provides a disincentive against such an act.
The police tend to be the first port of call for lost property, and a requirement to notify the police could, in many circumstances, result in the rapid return of the certificate, despite the hon. Gentleman's cynicism about certain items being reported to the police as lost and never found again. I am sure that he would not want that to reflect on the massive efforts of the Cambridgeshire police in doing their best to track down missing objects.
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Finally, the imposition of the burden, together with the licensing authority's ability to charge a fee for a replacement licence, provides an incentive for clubs to have a good look for the licence—perhaps even a good rummage down the back of the sofa—before claiming it lost. Although the hon. Gentleman is right to question any possible extension of bureaucracy, the importance of something as basic to the running of a business as a club certificate should be recognised. That certificate, so important to the club, to the responsible bodies and to the police in certain circumstances, should be properly looked after.
Mr. Moss: The Minister's response was helpful in some respects. I have not quite perceived the workings of the criminal minds of those who go around thieving club certificates. Perhaps the Minister might explain how many go missing in any given year.
Mr. Field: It occurred to me during the course of that exchange—perhaps my hon. Friend has some thoughts on the matter—that the danger of going down such a route is the fact that the first thing that any licensee would do is copy the certificate several times over. Those copies might be liable to theft, but the licensee would look after his interests by having various copies of the licence around that he could brandish in front of anyone from a local authority who might want to inspect it. That would defeat the very object that the Minister presumably has in mind.
Mr. Moss: My hon. Friend makes his point forcefully.
It seems to me that the situation will arise only when the club committee or the secretary needs to produce the certificate for whatever reason, and they discover that they cannot lay their hands on it. At that point, because possession of the certificate is vital, as the Minister pointed out, they would immediately get on to the licensing authority and say, ''We can't find our certificate and we need a replacement. Of course we realise we'll have to pay for it.'' That would seem the normal scenario, rather than someone ringing up the police to say, ''By the way, we've lost our certificate.'' I am not sure how important the reporting of that loss would be if the discovery of it is likely to prompt the committee of a club to get in touch with the licensing authority immediately for a replacement.
Dr. Howells: It was remiss of me not to answer a question that the hon. Gentleman posed initially, about who is responsible for the commission of the offence at any time. He put his finger on it: it is the current secretary, acting on behalf of the club, who is responsible. If I were the current secretary, I would worry about that.
Mr. Moss: So would I, and that relates to an earlier point that we made strongly. We believe that the club secretary should be a senior officer of the club. The Minister felt otherwise, and the Committee did not accept our amendment. It seems to me that in such onerous situations, where there are substantial repercussions if individuals have been seen to be remiss in their duties, the person responsible ought to be a senior person. In the light of the Minister's
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comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 77 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 78 and 79 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 80
Notification of change of name or alteration
of rules of club
Mr. Turner: I beg to move amendment No. 365, in
clause 80, page 45, line 24, leave out subsection (2).
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 366, in
clause 81, page 46, line 10, leave out subsection (3).
Mr. Turner: This amendment is self-explanatory. It would remove the power to charge a fee for simple notifications such as change of name, alteration of rules of the club, or change of relevant registered address. In view of the limited number of such changes, which we hope will continue to be the case, it is not likely to lead to great loss to local authorities, particularly in view of the Minister's earlier promise that only major changes that affect the licensing activities are likely to lead to litigation. I hope that the Minister will find the amendments acceptable.
Dr. Howells: Clauses 80 and 81 set out that clubs must notify the relevant licensing authority of any change in the name or rules of the club, or in the address of the club. Such information is essential for enforcement, because licensing authorities and other relevant agencies must have accurate up-to-date information.
Clubs are groups that are voluntarily established to engage in qualifying club activities, among other things. It is because of the nature of these activities, which impact on public safety, crime, disorder and nuisance, that clubs will have to continue to apply for certificates, as they currently have to apply for registration. Furthermore, it is because of the implications of club activities for safety, crime, disorder and nuisance that the Government's policy is to require fees from clubs to cover the costs of administration, inspection and enforcement, so that such costs do not fall to the taxpayer.
The amendments would remove the Secretary of State's power to set a fee for notifications of changes in the name or address of a club or in its rules. As I made clear previously, fees will be set at a fair and appropriate level that will allow licensing authorities to recover the costs of administration, inspection and enforcement, following full discussions with local government. To remove the power to prescribe fees for notifications would mean that local authorities would have to find the money to cover their costs elsewhere, perhaps by raising the fees for other applications or notifications—in effect, by asking the licensed trade to subsidise the club movement. That would be unfair and unacceptable.
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Mr. Turner: Before the Minister develops that part of his argument, which I may come to later, will he confirm that a fee set under either of the subsections would cover not merely the administration of the receipt and the filing of the notification but also a share of the authority's overheads, inspections and other costs? I fear that that element would place an undue burden on a club that has merely changed its name or registered address.
Dr. Howells: That is a very good question. The Committee has discussed at length how fees are to be set and what constitutes a local authority's overheads—that was the key word in the hon. Gentleman's questions. Clearly, a sports club or any other type of club should not have to carry the cost of street cleaning, for example, because we all pay council tax in order that such tasks can be properly paid for and carried out.
The fees will be set at a level that allows the authority to recover its costs, but not to make a profit—there is a big difference. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster gave good examples of some of the costs that his local authority charged, and he argued cogently that because of variations the fees are bound to be higher in some areas than in others. There is no question about that.
The costs of the procedures set out in clauses 80 and 81 will be small, as they are for administrative charges. We anticipate that they will be about £10—we are not talking about large sums of money. In addition, clubs will rarely ask for such changes to be made to their certificates. I am trying very hard to think of clubs in my own constituency that have regularly changed their address. Some sports clubs have moved their grounds occasionally, but the place where alcohol is consumed and entertainment takes place usually remains the same, for obvious reasons.
The costs associated with the new system will not be burdensome for clubs. In fact, significant savings will result from the reductions in bureaucracy that the Bill will introduce. For example, it will do away with the need for hearings for the majority of applications for certificates.
I have tried on many occasions to set out as clearly as I can why it is important for fee levels to be prescribed centrally and not at local level. We need to ensure that, while all licensing authorities recover their costs, there is consistency and transparency for those applying for certificates or licences. That is important. To allow fees to be set locally might undermine that. After that reassurance, I hope that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight will withdraw the amendment.
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