Clause 19 - Closure of certain licensed premises
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
12:45 pm
Mr Charles Clarke (Minister of State, Home Office; Norwich South, Labour)
This has been a most interesting discussion, and I would like to make some general points at the outset.
As hon. Members will know, the Portman Group is a respected organisation that works closely with the licensed industry. The group commissioned a MORI survey, which it published in January of this year, in which 14 per cent. of people reported that they had been the victim of violence in pubs. That seemed to me a very large figure indeed. About 20 per cent. of frequent drinkers had been victims of violence in pubs. I was struck by those figures. It seems to me that, overall, although many such polls are simply a matter of subjective assessment, the data show that there is an issue that must be tackled. That is why the Portman Group published them.
Secondly, I want to pay public tribute to the industry itself and its various organisations, some of which have been referred to by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire, which have worked closely with the Government, and across government, to develop a more positive approach to all the matters. As my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) said, the industry and its organisations believe that it is important that we reach a state of affairs where alcohol is not seen as a cause of crime; where people can go and have a quiet drink in the evening and that can be seen simply as a normal part of life. The organisations, the brewers and the licensees know that it is important to ensure that people who work in their industry but do not live up to its standards should not be seen as representative of it. They have been positive about many of the proposals that we have discussed.
Thirdly, it is important to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire, and reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Selby, about the importance of partnership. Soon after I started doing this job I was most impressed by a visit that I paid to the city of York, where there is a joint operation run by the police, the local authority and the licensees. That operation is a close partnership, with a whole set of requirements about the way in which people work together. It is designed to achieve the kind of position that my hon. Friend is talking about, where licensees feel confident in the police and work with them to tackle the issues that arise as they arise, and where police respect licensees. I pay tribute to what has been done in the city of York. I will not take up the Committee's time by giving further examples, but there are many places other than York where that kind of joint work has been positively developed. Nothing in the Bill should be seen as undermining that type of critical relationship.
Fourthly, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire made a point about safeguards for the industry and proper targeting—that constellation of issues. Just as we support partnerships, we share entirely the aspiration expressed by the hon. Gentleman in relation to the matter. It would be appalling if powers in the Bill were to lead to a disentangling of the relations through improper targeting, if that is the right phrase, or through blanket operations in particular chunks of cities, or by any other means.
We agree with that point, and we agree that it is right to debate the amendments that have been put forward by the industry to clarify and draw out the issues in a constructive way. In that context, it is necessary to have a high threshold for action to be taken, so that it will be seen as a rare rather than a frequent event for any of the actions set out in the Bill to be taken. I emphasise that the Government do not believe that thousands of pubs around the country are acting in an unacceptable way, on which, through the powers of the Bill, the firm hand of the law will come down. Incidents of unacceptable behaviour are isolated, but the matter must be dealt with. Isolated targeting is at the core of our approach.
My next point relates to the remarks of the hon. Member for Reigate. This is an issue for all of us. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire decries guidance, but police conduct is an issue. It is a matter of how the police are trained, under what guidance they are operating, and how they normally proceed, for example in the area of warnings, which we will discuss in detail in a moment. It is the practice of the police, who have constantly to decide on different uses of their powers, to warn. I suspect that, usually, they would warn on many occasions, because they are the first to recognise that if they use their powers in a way that is perceived as arbitrary or dictatorial, they will not succeed in making the law work.
Our guidance will deal with those matters in the most effective way. I believe—it is not an evasion—that it is our job as legislators to set the legal framework, but that its implementation is a matter for guidance. How it is to be implemented should be a professional matter for the police, and it should be the subject of consultation and debate—including debate by the House.
I want to make one final, general point. There has been talk—not here today, but on other occasions—suggesting that the powers could be thought of as draconian. That is not right. I refer to what the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire said at the start of his speech about costs and the implications for business. New section 179A(2) defines a closure order as
``an order requiring relevant licensed premises to be closed for a period not exceeding twenty-four hours beginning with the coming into force of the order''.
It might often be a great deal less time than that; it might be until midnight, until what would otherwise have been closing time, or from 10.30 pm until 2 am. It is not right to describe such a power as draconian. I am not trying to put words into the mouths of Opposition Members, but in debates on later amendments we shall be discussing the work of magistrates and so forth. It is not an arbitrary power that could put someone out of business; it is a particular power to deal with the particular circumstances of disorderly pubs. That is the context in which I want to address the amendments. I shall deal with them one by one in a moment.