Clause 13 - Designation of alcohol disorder zones
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
10:15 am
Humfrey Malins (Shadow Minister, (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Woking, Conservative)
With this probing amendment, we seek to clarify how satisfied the local authority should be of the need to make a designation? Does the Minister want simply to leave the word “satisfied” in the Bill? She probably does. What are her thoughts on whether there should be a higher or lower test, as with civil and criminal court proceedings? What about using the word “sure”?
I move on to discuss amendment No. 44. It seems to me—I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that under clause 13(1)(b), it is entirely possible that an area could be designated as an alcohol disorder zone even though none of the alcohol that has caused the problem has been supplied by any of the premises within it. That paragraph states that an authority can designate an area as a zone if it is satisfied that the nuisance is
“associated with the consumption of alcohol in that locality or with the consumption of alcohol supplied at premises in that locality”.
This is not a point of principle; the problem may be down to poor drafting. It is odd to say that if alcohol is supplied irresponsibly in one town and drunk there by a whole lot of irresponsible people who then go together to another town where they neither purchase nor consume any alcohol, the second town could be designated as an alcohol disorder zone even though none of the alcohol that fuelled the problem was supplied there. I would appreciate the Minister’s response on that little difficulty.