Clause 8 - Exercise and delegation of functions
Licensing Bill [Lords]
3:30 pm
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I must cease to be taken in by every mouthed intervention that the hon. Gentleman makes; otherwise the Committee will last forever. There is a conflict of interest because someone who has set themselves a political purpose tends not to be in a judicial frame of mind when considering the law relating, not to that purpose, but to whether a planning application or a licence of that kind should be issued. It is important that the committee be in a judicial frame of mind.
A second argument is that members of licensing—and planning—committees will need to be trained to ensure that they approach issues in a suitably judicial manner. I have been advised on the subject by my local authority's head of paid service. If the licensing committee is to be trained, but people who can exercise the power but are not on the licensing committee are not, there may be defects in the decisions that the latter take. It is inappropriate to delegate a licensing decision to a non-licensing committee, first because of the lack of training—unless, of course, the Minister intends to write a requirement for training into the Bill—and secondly because of the danger of a conflict of interest.
Amendment No. 94 would allow certain things to be done in urgent cases. I recognise that things may sometimes be urgent, but it is easy for local authorities to leave the preparation and presentation of reports until they become urgent, and then they are not bound by the same rules as they would be if they had not left them. That is a loophole that needs to be plugged, not
only in this case but in a range of local authority business. Indeed, Ministers in the Department for Education and Skills have plugged similar loopholes with regard to governing bodies; there is now a definition of ''urgent''.
Amendment No. 93 would require a licensing authority to ask the licensing committee before handing its power to another committee. Of course, I understand why subsection (5)(b) is included, but I would have thought that subsection (5)(a) was rather more important, and that the licensing authority should consult the licensing committee before the committee gave up a power, or had a power taken away from it by the executive or by the recreation committee.
Finally, amendment No. 95 sets out the conditions in which it may be inappropriate for the licensing committee to discharge its functions. If it cannot discharge a function because many of its members have a conflict of interest, it is not unreasonable that the matter should be discharged elsewhere. Otherwise, however, it is not appropriate for something to be referred willy-nilly to other committees of the authority.