Clause 7 - Theft, loss etc. of certificate or summary
Licensing Bill [Lords]
6:00 pm
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.