Clause 6 - Statement of licensing policy
Licensing Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
Amendments Nos. 75 and 80 are fairly simple and are essentially probing amendments. The Government need to justify why they deem it necessary to prescribe matters in this way, particularly with regard to the duration of the licensing policy. Why must each licensing authority publish a licensing statement every three years, which will follow on from fairly extensive consultations each time? In any event, subsection (3) asks each licensing authority to take into account the views of people in the local area. Subsection (4) provides licensing authorities with the power to revise policy at any time. It is not necessary to prescribe at the outset that a local authority has to go through that hoop every three years.
The Government have required local authorities to carry out reviews of all sorts of things at three-year intervals, so they are bringing this matter into line with what they have already asked authorities to do. If it is not necessary to do it, why make a requirement to do it? If a process is working well, we see no need for a review to be prescribed. If it is not working well, there is provision for reviews to take place as and when the local licensing authority deems it important and necessary to do so.
The Government protest all the time that the Bill is deregulatory, but the clause contains an instruction to
local authorities that they must set up a completely new licensing policy or review the one that they have got every three years. Unless the Government come up with good reasons, there is no need for that over-prescription.