Clause 47 - Interim authority notice following death etc. of licence holder
Licensing Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
Thank you, Mr. Gale. Welcome back to the Chair after what, I hope, was a pleasant Easter break. The amendments are probing amendments. They deal with various time scales to test the Government's thinking behind the length of the periods set out in the Bill. They relate to clause 47, which deals with the interim authority notice following the death et cetera of a licence holder as defined by ''death, incapacity''—I suppose that that is mental incapacity—
''or insolvency of the holder''
under subsection (1)(a).
Such events are fairly traumatic and, one way or another, would throw the business into panic. The Bill allows seven days after such an event for the notice to be submitted. We argue that that period is probably on the tight side, in light of the circumstances that gave
rise to such events. A10-day period would give an extra three days, with perhaps a weekend in between, to allow people to collect their thoughts and take stock of the situation, for example, when a person has died or been admitted to hospital. It would give people time to adjust to such matters and to make the necessary arrangements as well as thinking about the serving of an interim notice. We want to elicit from the Government their reasons for wanting a period of seven days after a fairly traumatic event has happened.
Amendment No. 282 would increase the time between the chief officer of police receiving a copy of the interim authority notice and notifying the relevant licensing authority that he or she was duly satisfied. It would change the time from 48 hours to 96. We want to test why 48 hours is deemed to be appropriate. At present, our police force says that it is overworked and under great pressure. As we know, our constabularies suffer problems of one sort or another and to state, under the Bill, that they should react within 48 hours of receiving a notice seems a little on the tight side.
Let us consider the Easter break, when there was a holiday period of four days: Good Friday, the weekend and Easter Monday. Obviously, police officers do not down tools for the whole Easter period, but there would probably be fewer of them on duty and to say that they had to respond within 48 hours in such a holiday period would put undue and unreasonable pressure on them. Have the Government taken such matters into account?
Amendment No. 283 would impose a time limit of 14 days for a hearing to take place by a local authority under clause 48(3)(a), which states that the authority must hold a hearing to consider the notice
''unless the authority, the relevant person and the chief officer of police agree that a hearing is unnecessary''.
Time scales are imposed on everyone else, such as the person who must submit the interim authority notice and the police, but nothing in the Bill requires the local authority to respond within a particular time. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten me otherwise. Everyone else seems to be held to a time limit and the local authority should be, too.
The situation could be fairly tricky. The business may be in a period of hiatus and there may be questions about how it should continue, who would take over, and so forth. It seems unreasonable that the Bill provides no time limit within which the local authority should respond and hear the police objection. Perhaps the Minister will consider whether, in the interests of a speedy transition, it is necessary to impose a time limit within which a local authority should hold a hearing.
If the police object to an interim notice, a cloud of suspicion may hang over the head of the individual who wishes to take over and it is important that that be removed quickly and reasonably, for the success of the business.