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Hazel Blears: I can give the hon. Member for Woking the assurance that when a drinking banning order is made on conviction, the court will be able to make a drinking banning order in the absence of the defendant, because it will proceed with the criminal charge in the defendant's absence. The Bill provides that the court must then consider whether to make a drinking banning order, so the matter could proceed in absence.
I am pleased that the courts increasingly want to proceed in the absence of defendants, because on some occasions, defendants have sought to string out proceedings for weeks and months with several absences. It is good practice for magistrates to proceed in that way.
In terms of free-standing applications, interim orders can be applied for on an ex parte basis in the absence of the person who is the subject of the order. The position about substantive applications that are not interim is not clear, so I shall undertake to clarify that aspect of the legislation for the hon. Gentleman, and I shall return to it.
I have previously explained to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green that the alcohol harm reduction strategy has a range of work streams. Some are being led by the Department of Health around sensible drinking messages, education and ensuring that young people in particular know what they are
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drinking, how many units they are drinking, and what effect that can have on their health.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is involved in town centre management, and in the consideration of how different premises can be better managed. This legislation is about drinking banning orders and ensuring that the police have the necessary enforcement powers to make a difference to alcohol misuse. Our strategy is always good enforcement; it is also support, education and campaigning. They are not mutually exclusive, and we must ensure that we do both.
Although it is sometimes easier and more comfortable to do the education and health work, it is crucial to protect the decent law-abiding majority. We are also prepared to enforce where necessary and to use the powers that the police have asked us to introduce, so that they can take action on the streets to ensure that alcohol does not continue to blight people's lives.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Orders in County Court Proceedings
Mr. Malins: I beg to move amendment No. 18, in clause 3, page 3, line 15, after 'proceedings', insert
', which shall be heard by a County Court judge within seven days of the application,'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 25, in clause 9, page 7, line 30, after 'magistrates', insert 'or county'.
No. 26, in clause 9, page 7, line 31, after '2', insert ', 3'.
Mr. Malins: I shuddered when I read clause 3, which relates to county court proceedings, because we all know that such proceedings can last interminably—not just for days but for weeks or months. The approach in such courts seems to be different from that in Crown courts and magistrates courts.
The clause provides for somebody who is a relevant authority but not party to the county court proceedings to make an application to be joined to those proceedings in order to apply for a drinking banning order against an individual. The prospect of such an application being heard quickly is remote. Most county courts go into recess over the summer. They do not sit at all in August, and their proceedings drag on not for months but for years. Drinking banning orders, by their very nature, should be sought and imposed with relative speed. After all, if the object is to nip something in the bud, we do not want to wait until the bud has grown, turned into a flower and dropped off the branch. My amendment, therefore, aims to ensure that the county court judge hears the application quickly, rather than permitting it to be made and listed for 56 days hence, and then agreeing to an adjournment at the request of the respondent to the application for a further 56 days. Look what happens, then: months later, there is no progress at all.
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Amendment No. 25 refers to clause 9, but it has been linked to this clause because it relates to appeals. I am not sure whether it is sensible to include a county court because one wonders what would happen in relation to a possible appeal by an individual against whom a drinking banning order is made during the course of some form of county court proceedings. That could happen.
Hazel Blears: The civil procedure rules already provide detail in relation to the making and hearing of applications. It is unnecessary to set such matters out in the Bill. I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern to ensure that applications are heard speedily, but in this case they will not be freestanding applications for drinking banning orders, they will be made in relation to existing proceedings—perhaps for eviction from a tenancy—in the context of which it is thought appropriate to bring in an application for a drinking banning order. That is similar to what happens in relation to antisocial behaviour orders, when a relative of somebody against whom proceedings are under way ought to have an order made against him because his drinking is causing problems to the neighbours and other families in the area.
This is not a matter of the police deciding that they need an order and going to the county court instead of the magistrates; it is a mechanism for attaching an application to existing proceedings. There is already provision in the civil procedure rules for the time limits to be flexible, and if cases need to be heard urgently, they can be. I know of cases in which people have made urgent applications to county court judges and have had matters dealt with very quickly. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the current civil procedure rules are flexible enough to allow that to happen and that we do not need to add anything to the Bill. However, I understand his sentiment and am pleased that he wants such matters to be heard urgently, as do I.
The other amendments refer to technical issues concerning where appeals might lie. Any appeal against an order made in the county court must be made in accordance with part 52 of the civil procedure rules. Appeals against orders made by a district judge will be made to a circuit judge and those against orders made by a circuit judge to the High Court. There is to be no departure from that route in the case of drinking banning orders; the measures have to be seen in the context of existing proceedings in the county court. On that basis, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.
Mr. Malins: I felt a little reassured by the Minister's comments on the first of my amendments but not at all by those relating to appeal. We are considering a quasi-criminal situation, and if an order is made in the magistrates court there is an appeal, I think, to the Crown court. I shall be corrected if I am wrong; I am not being corrected, so I think I am right. Those are both criminal venues. A case goes straight from a magistrate to a recorder or a Crown court judge, hearing the appeal on a Friday, with no trouble at all.
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What, however, do we have in the provision before us? In proceedings in the county court an order is to be made by a county court judge, and it is extraordinary to me that an appeal against that drinking banning order must go to the High Court. I cannot see that any legal aid would be granted in the proceedings; it might be thought preposterous—not necessarily by me—to use public funds in that way for such an appeal. However, appeals to the High Court take months. Does the Minister really intend that someone who has been made subject to a drinking banning order in existing county court proceedings should have a right of appeal only to the High Court of Justice in the Strand? It is an astonishing prospect. However, having given my view, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Variation or discharge of orders
under section 2 or 3
Mr. Malins: I beg to move amendment No. 19, in clause 4, page 4, line 10, at end insert
'and cannot be made until the expiry of one quarter of the period of the order.'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 183, in clause 4, page 4, line 14, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
'(a) the court is satisfied that there has been a change in circumstances such that either the order is no longer necessary, or that it is no longer appropriate, or both; or'.
Mr. Malins: Amendment No. 19 deals with the important issue of a variation or discharge of a drinking banning order. Indeed, the clause is headed ''Variation or discharge of orders under section 2 or 3''. The purpose of my amendment—and amendment No. 183 is along similar lines, to some extent, referring as it does to the court's being
''satisfied that there has been a change in circumstances''—
is to tease out the Minister's further thoughts on the issue of variation and discharge. Under subsection (6), a drinking banning order cannot be discharged less than halfway through. I am not entirely sure that that is appropriate. There should be more flexibility about discharge, hence my amendment No. 183.
What about variation? It seems that under the Bill anyone can apply for a variation of the order at any stage. That is an interesting situation, Mr. Forth. If you or I are made subject to a drinking banning order on a Monday—it may perhaps be a two-year order—what are we to do about it? Under the Bill, we must wait a year before any application can be made to discharge it. We understand that, but would not it be possible under the Bill for us to return to court on Tuesday to make a variation application?
If I am wrong, the Minister will tell me, but if I am right that makes a mockery of the view that the order cannot be discharged; it could be varied. That may give a potential defendant—or more probably a respondent, in civil proceedings—the opportunity to
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appear almost weekly, without ban, on a whim, to apply again and again for variations of the order. The number of possibilities is immense. Can the Minister explain?
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