Clause 98 - Temporary event notice
Licensing Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)
Yes. I am reliably informed that the number does include the staff, so that reduces the number of people who can be let into the marquee or other place where the event happens to be. I can tell the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Selby that I have been trying to tot up the figures. If at a long CAMRA weekend, alcohol starts to be sold at 6 pm on Friday and finishes being sold at 11 pm on Sunday—the organisation having not taken advantage of the new law to stay open until 2 o'clock on Monday morning—by my calculations, that works out at about 77 hours. If we add three to that, it takes the total up to about 80 hours.
The matter is debatable, of course, as hon. Members acknowledged. I shall think hard about the hours and I hope that Committee members will also do so, thinking especially, as I have tried to emphasise, about those unfortunates who live next door to some of the premises. They will see 72 hours as the light at the end of the tunnel and would be worried if we extended the limit much beyond that. We shall, however, examine the matter carefully.
I do not intend to go through the variations in licences and licence conditions, but there is no reason why the publican to whom the hon. Member for Isle of Wight referred would have to amend his premises licence repeatedly. As the hon. Gentleman told us, Cowes week is a long-established event, which arrives
yearly. It is not a shock to the publican, the licence holder or the community. I am sure that being the business man that he seems to be, he knows what, roughly, is required. Variations in licence conditions would be few and far between and not onerous in terms of cost.