Clause 32 - Sale of intoxicating liquor toa person under eighteen
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
10:45 am
Mrs Jackie Ballard (Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
I was not singled out in the Minister's earlier Ofsted report either for praise or blame, but I am always brief and I shall be so this time.
It is important to restrict the sale of alcohol to people who are over the legal age. One often sees young teenagers who have obviously taken alcohol, and it is clearly far too easy for them to buy it. As the clause stands, the seller would have a defence if he could prove that nobody could reasonably have suspected from a person's appearance that he or she was under 18. We believe that the clause is too narrowly drawn. Judging someone's appearance is subjective, not objective. The seller can be responsible only for his or her judgment on the day, not for a judgment that anyone else might conceivably make. Their judgment may partly depend on their experience of teenagers—for example, their knowledge of how young girls can look many years older than their age. I recently told the Minister a story about my daughter, who was able to buy age-related products that she should not have bought when she was only 13 or 14. As she was almost 6 ft tall at the time, it would have been difficult to blame the retailer for being unaware that she was well under 18.
If the test is to be that nobody could reasonably have thought that the person was under 18, that inevitably leads to the view that one can be certain of someone's age only if they produce a proof-of-age card. That is the most reasonable step that can be taken to ensure that a person is of a certain age. I strongly support proof-of-age card schemes, and I recently launched one locally. The young people involved, who were from an independent school and a state school, thought that it would be helpful if they were able to buy other age-related products, of which there are a range, including fireworks and cigarettes. However, it has not been easy to persuade a large number of retailers consistently to use the scheme, so there has been a disappointingly slow take-up. If young people are not regularly asked for a proof-of-age card, there is less incentive for them to get one.
The logical consequence of the clause, and of the fact that there are local proof-of-age card schemes with varying degrees of success, is the introduction of a national age card scheme. The Minister has responded to that proposal in the past, and perhaps this is not the time for him to do so again in detail, but I hope that it has been seriously considered by the Home Office.