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Mr. Moss: We have had a good debate on the issues addressed in the amendments, and I congratulate the Minister on his positive response to many of our questions. We have had assurances that he will go away and think about certain points, which is welcome, and his explanation of the position of farmers markets will be helpful in reassuring those who have approached him, and other hon. Members, that the possibilities under the Bill may be greater than they have hitherto enjoyed. The debate has cleared the air and clarified the Government's position most satisfactorily, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chairman, being of the opinion that the principle of the clause and any matters arising thereon had been adequately discussed in the course of debate on the amendments proposed thereto, forthwith put the Question, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 68 and 89, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Question agreed to.
Clause 98 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chairman: Before we proceed, I must tell the Committee that the clause that we have just considered was extremely complex and covered a wide range of issues. For that reason, I allowed a great deal of latitude in the discussion. We have a considerable amount of work to complete before the guillotine falls at 5 o'clock next Tuesday evening, so we have to make considerable progress. Clauses 99 to 101, although important, are relatively straightforward, and I hope that hon. Members will accept that I do not propose to allow the same latitude that I gave under clause 98 in debate on these clauses.
I should also point out to hon. Members that as Chairman, I have to take cognisance both of the welfare of the Officers of the House and of the fact that some Members need to sign and deliver post for collection prior to the new cut-off time of 6 o'clock. Therefore, I am prepared to allow the Committee to sit until 5.15 pm. It is entirely up to the members of the Committee whether they wish to sit later than that, but if they do, I shall suspend the Committee at 5.15 and reconvene it an hour later.
Clause 99
Minimum of 24 hours between event periods
Mr. Hoban: I beg to move amendment No. 342, in
clause 99, page 56, line 32, leave out 'the whole or'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 419, in
Mr. Hoban: I want to probe the nature of the 24-hour gap between temporary event notices, and to
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highlight, through the amendment, my concern about what may happen when there are two temporary event notices for the same premises. I can understand that in very small premises, such as one-room community halls, one would not want back-to-back temporary event notices; however, I am mindful of locations such as secondary schools that have large grounds and may have buildings dotted across them. An example that springs to mind is Brookfield community school in my constituency. It has a sports hall at one end of the grounds and a music performance facility at the other, and both could be used for temporary events.
This morning we touched briefly on the nature of premises, and how premises could be defined. We were talking about the location of marquees, and were determining what and where premises could be. Will we ensure that sensible guidance is given to local authorities so that schools, or other places where the premises used are sufficiently far apart, do not fall within the provisions? Also, can we make sure that different parts of premises can be covered by different temporary events notices, and that those notices will not cancel each other out because they are less than 24 hours apart?
Nick Harvey: May I ask the Minister for guidance on the meaning of subsection (1)(b)? I presume that the objective of clause 99 is to prevent organisers of an event from doing what the hon. Member for Selby described this morning, and putting back-to-back applications together to get it to run for longer. However, if I understand the subsection correctly, it would prevent two different events held by different organisations from going back-to-back. To come back to the village hall that we have been discussing all day, it seems that if someone were having a 21st birthday party on a Saturday night, it would be impossible for someone else in the village to celebrate their 90th birthday at lunchtime on the Sunday. It would be regrettable to take such a large club to such a small issue; the Government may be using disproportionate control.
The Chairman: Order. The issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised might more properly be discussed in a clause stand part debate, but although I wanted to avoid that, I am prepared to allow the Minister to respond to that point in due course.
Mr. Turner: I do not think that my amendment needs further explanation.
Dr. Howells: I can certainly give the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) an assurance that we will issue clear and sensible guidance to licensing authorities. Amendment No. 342 would delete the words ''the whole or'', but I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman intends that, when a temporary event notice is given in respect of premises the whole of which form part of premises for which another temporary event notice has been given, the two notices should not be considered to apply to the same premises. That would be contrary to common sense.
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If the words ''the whole or'' are deleted, it will not be clear that in those circumstances the two notices will be in respect of the same premises for the purposes of the requirement for a minimum period under clause 99. It is not the case that ''any part of'' will necessarily include ''the whole''. I know that the details are difficult; I found them difficult when I considered the amendment and tried to understand it.
Mr. Hoban: I sympathise with the Minister's plight. I tabled the amendment last week, but having looked at it this afternoon, I am not entirely sure that it would achieve what I was trying to achieve.
Dr. Howells: Perhaps I should go on to amendment No. 419, which would replace ''any part'' with
''the majority, as measured by area''.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight would take my point that in many cases, that would impose the most unenviable of burdens on the person giving the temporary event notice. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not envisage the person who is giving the notice going down on his hands and knees with a tape measure trying to figure out the exact proportions of the area to which the temporary event notice relates. Even if that were his intention, the criteria under clause 99 are designed, notwithstanding the technical terms in which they are framed, to offer a simple test and, more importantly, a simple safeguard against people taking unfair advantage of the very light touch system that the Bill introduces.
Mr. Turner: I did not intend people to crawl around and measure the area—after all, I accept that during Cowes week the area in question may change its shape, depending on the state of the tide. However, I am concerned about the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, and about the definition of ''premises''. The Minister said that that was up to the local authority, but the definition for the purpose of giving a notice should be clearer. Is a ''place'' something about which either the applicant or the local authority can be clear? For example, is the university of Oxford a ''place''? It is an institution; it covers an area. Indeed, it covers many areas, some of which contiguous and some non-contiguous, but is it a place?
Dr. Howells: It certainly is not. I want to make the position clear, so let us suppose that the august university of Warwick, with its clearly defined campus, wanted to put on a great festival. Presumably the university would put in its application for that entire area to have a premises licence. In my experience, Warwick has several premises licences, but they are for specific bars in different buildings on the campus.
In the case of Oxford university, I imagine that such matters would be even more complicated. I do not know the specific details about Oxford, but I assume that the premises licences there relate to the bars and buildings throughout the city that form part of the university. Each licence would have to be applied for separately. That is proper, because although a single bar application might look like a nice non-bureaucratic approach, for the people who happen to live close to bars in different parts of the city, it could
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have different consequences. That is why we have to be specific.
5 pm
I think that we have had enough of tides. For the record, we have discovered via our august Chairman that there is a Goodwin Sands cricket club, but if I go into that I will be straying off the subject.
What the hon. Member for North Devon said flummoxed me for a moment. He referred to clause 99(1) and asked what it meant for village halls. Subsection (1) is intended to prevent temporary event notices operating back-to-back on the same premises when given by the same premises user. In other words, I assume that the 18-year-old, or the family of the 18-year-old who give the temporary event notice, would be different from the 90-year-old in the hon. Gentleman's example. As they are not the same individuals or agents or families, they would not be counted as back-to-back events. They would be classed as two separate events.
Nick Harvey: I welcome what the Minister has said, which is what I hoped that he would say, but clause 99(1) states:
''A temporary event notice . . . given by an individual . . . is void if the event period specified in it does not . . . begin at least 24 hours after the event period specified in any other such notice.''
I welcome the interpretation of the clause that the Minister has given, but if he is confident and right in that meaning, what does ''any other such notice'' comprise?
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