Clause 51 - Application for a review of premises licence
Licensing Bill [Lords]
10:15 am
Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I listened carefully to the Minister's explanation. Again, he is pleading for flexibility. However, if we accept that a time scale of any description will probably be inflexible, what is the point of including subsection 5(b) at all? Why have ''a reasonable interval'' if it means nothing? If, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, premises can change quickly—circumstances can change at a given environment with a different licence holder within a short period of weeks or months—the idea of a reasonable interval goes out of the window. The fact that it was only a few months earlier that objections were raised and
applications for review were made is irrelevant to the changed circumstances, so I cannot see the point of the reasonable interval.
I do not dispute the fact that the scene can change rapidly, and we need to be flexible to deal with that. With my probing amendment, I simply wanted to get a sense of the Government's thinking on the subject, but the Minister has ended up arguing for removing subsection (5)(b) entirely. I cannot press that idea to a vote, because that is not my amendment, but his comments leave in question whether we need the definition of paragraph (b) at all. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.