Clause 98 - Temporary event notice
Licensing Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman mentioned a village in Hertfordshire: I think that it was Kimpton. He said that, in the past, it had 12 such events a year. I have worked out that under the present system that would cost the village £120. If it gets a premises licence, that will cost it £100, and it will have to pay £50 a year as an inspection charge to the local authority: that amounts to £150. At present, those 12 events depend upon it being able to persuade a local holder of a licence—who could be the pub owner from the next village or wherever about whom the hon. Gentleman was talking—to come along and take part in them. It does not have to keep alcohol on the premises. It does not have to do anything: it could have exactly the same arrangement, with the security of knowing that the landlord of that local pub could come along on 50 occasions a year and allow it to hold the sorts of event that he has been talking about on that premises.