Clause 19 - Closure of certain licensed premises due todisorder or disturbance
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
6:15 pm
Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
The amendments are designed to ensure that the licensee and the person on whom the notice of closure is served have an adequate opportunity to be heard by the court. The effect of amendment No. 87 is that, where the clause says that the justices shall,
``as soon as reasonably practicable, consider whether to exercise their powers'',
at which point the three options are available to them, the person who has been given notice of the order should have at least three hours to appear before them, so that he can, however briefly, consider his position.
The BLRA supports the principle that reasonable notice should precede any further action leading to statutory closure, with its consequences. That matter could be dealt with either by guidance or by amendment, but the Minister should tell us what he has in mind to ensure that the licensee or person served with the notice has an opportunity to be heard and set forward his views.
The same applies to amendment No. 88. Under subsection (3), a closure order will be brought before the magistrates and they may take one of the three courses of action: revocation, ordering the premises to remain closed until a decision has been taken by the licensing justices or making any other order in relation to the premises. That amendment would give the licence holder or manager of licensed premises the right to have his opinion heard during such consideration.
Amendment No. 89 is slightly different, because it would remove the third option. In other words, the magistrates would be able either to revoke the order or to order that the premises were to remain closed, but they would not be able to
``make any other order as they think fit in relation to the premises''.
This is a probing amendment, because we would like to know what that provision means. We hope that the Minister can explain to us what sort of orders he has in mind under paragraph (c). So the purport of the amendments is to allow a right to be heard, and to find out what the Minister has in mind under paragraph (c).