Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 331, in

clause 77, page 44, line 34, leave out 'lost or'.

Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 332, in

clause 77, page 44, line 34, leave out 'loss or'.

Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

These amendments will be quick to deal with. I cannot quite understand why clause 77(3)(b) gives as a condition that where a certificate or summary has been lost, the club must report that loss to the police. I can understand the need to report the theft of such a document, but if it is lost, what is the point of that? Will it waste police time? How many forms will the sergeant on the desk or the constable visiting the club have to fill in? In the end, what does it prove? How will it move us further towards establishing whether the club has a genuine certificate and who is responsible for its not being available?

I have tabled the amendment to tease from the Minister why he considers it absolutely necessary for a loss to be reported to the police. The fact that a document is lost might not emerge for years, and that document might have passed through the hands of any number of secretaries. If so, pinning the blame will be almost impossible. It would be a complete irrelevance for that loss to be reported to the police after a period of years. They would not do anything about it; people report all sorts of losses—and thefts—to the police and get absolutely nowhere. I cannot see the justification for this piece of bureaucracy. It will simply tie up police time unnecessarily.

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

As the hon. Gentleman has told us, the amendment would remove the requirement in the Bill to notify the police of the loss of a club premises certificate. The amendments would be detrimental to the Bill for a number of reasons, and I shall list some of them.

The Bill contains an offence of failure to produce a certificate without reasonable excuse. When the police make such a request, a club that is unable for whatever reason to lay its hands on the certificate might first claim that it is lost. It would therefore be to the club's own benefit to report such a loss to the police at the first possible instance so that that can be recorded and the club's risk of being susceptible to committing that offence correspondingly reduced.

In addition, unscrupulous individuals who acquire a lost certificate might doctor it and use it to carry on qualifying club activities, so such a loss is something about which the police should know. There are many reasons why unscrupulous club operators may wish to possess two club premises certificates. For example, they may wish to protect against conditions that might be imposed by future reviews. The requirement to notify the police of the loss of a certificate provides a disincentive against such an act.

The police tend to be the first port of call for lost property, and a requirement to notify the police could, in many circumstances, result in the rapid return of the certificate, despite the hon. Gentleman's cynicism about certain items being reported to the police as lost and never found again. I am sure that he would not want that to reflect on the massive efforts of the Cambridgeshire police in doing their best to track down missing objects.

Finally, the imposition of the burden, together with the licensing authority's ability to charge a fee for a replacement licence, provides an incentive for clubs to have a good look for the licence—perhaps even a good rummage down the back of the sofa—before claiming it lost. Although the hon. Gentleman is right to question any possible extension of bureaucracy, the importance of something as basic to the running of a business as a club certificate should be recognised. That certificate, so important to the club, to the responsible bodies and to the police in certain circumstances, should be properly looked after.

Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

The Minister's response was helpful in some respects. I have not quite perceived the workings of the criminal minds of those who go around thieving club certificates. Perhaps the Minister might explain how many go missing in any given year.

Mr Mark Field (Cities of London & Westminster, Conservative)

It occurred to me during the course of that exchange—perhaps my hon. Friend has some thoughts on the matter—that the danger of going down such a route is the fact that the first thing that any licensee would do is copy the certificate several times over. Those copies might be liable to theft, but the licensee would look after his interests by having various copies of the licence around that he could brandish in front of anyone from a local authority who might want to inspect it. That would defeat the very object that the Minister presumably has in mind.

Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

My hon. Friend makes his point forcefully.

It seems to me that the situation will arise only when the club committee or the secretary needs to produce the certificate for whatever reason, and they discover that they cannot lay their hands on it. At that point, because possession of the certificate is vital, as the Minister pointed out, they would immediately get on to the licensing authority and say, ''We can't find our certificate and we need a replacement. Of course we realise we'll have to pay for it.'' That would seem the normal scenario, rather than someone ringing up the police to say, ''By the way, we've lost our certificate.'' I am not sure how important the reporting of that loss would be if the discovery of it is likely to prompt the committee of a club to get in touch with the licensing authority immediately for a replacement.

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

It was remiss of me not to answer a question that the hon. Gentleman posed initially, about who is responsible for the commission of the offence at any time. He put his finger on it: it is the current secretary, acting on behalf of the club, who is responsible. If I were the current secretary, I would worry about that.

Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

So would I, and that relates to an earlier point that we made strongly. We believe that the club secretary should be a senior officer of the club. The Minister felt otherwise, and the Committee did not accept our amendment. It seems to me that in such onerous situations, where there are substantial repercussions if individuals have been seen to be remiss in their duties, the person responsible ought to be a senior person. In the light of the Minister's

comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 77 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 78 and 79 ordered to stand part of the Bill.