Licensing Bill [HL]
5:30 pm
Lord Greenway (Crossbench)
My Lords, at the outset I say how grateful I am to noble Lords on all sides of the House and to the noble Baroness who supported the amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for giving a full and frank reply. I was not aware that under existing rules one can, apparently, supply alcohol to a child on a boat. As far as I am aware, under the MCA rules all passenger carrying boats have a strict alcohol policy maintained by the skipper. I should have thought that there are already plenty of regulations to deal with these matters.
I believe that the safety aspect is also something of a red herring. There are many regulations dealing with safety aspects with regard to the captain and crew. I believe that there is a far lesser possibility of safety problems arising out of alcohol consumption on the kind of boats I described. Nevertheless, any crumb of comfort is better than nothing. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for saying that he will reconsider aspects of the matter, I hope in consultation with the various trade associations involved in the activity. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.