Clause 3 - Licensing Authorities

Part of Licensing Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:45 am on 3 April 2003.

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Photo of Malcolm Moss Malcolm Moss Conservative, North East Cambridgeshire 10:45, 3 April 2003

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which cleared up some problems.

On the judicial function, one of the new licensing aims, as the Minister has oft repeated, is to prevent public nuisance. Local authority environmental health officers will be much involved and will have to prosecute. However, we think that much of the new law is subjective. If councils adjudicate in such cases, they will act as both judge and jury. We will come to

the guidance notes under clause 179, but perhaps I can allude to paragraph 4.11 of the guidance here, which, tellingly, says:

''Whether or not incidents can be regarded as being 'in the vicinity' of licensed premises . . . is . . . to be decided by the courts in cases of dispute.''

Licensees, as I have mentioned, respect the present system. There have been occasional problems but in the main, better the devil they know than the devil they do not. They respect the system because under it, they are answerable to the courts. We suggest that that is why there are so few problems with ordinary licensing.

On cost, one of the main selling points that the Government have used until now—perhaps the Minister will back off from it—is in the White Paper, which I have before me. The sections at the back deal with costs, resources and compliance costs. The White Paper was published some time ago, as we all know, by the Home Office. To my knowledge, there has been no amendment to the figures in the White Paper since the date of publication, April 2000. There has, therefore, been only the one attempt to produce costings. For those who have access to the document, chapter 13, ''Costs and Resources'', starts at page 52, and compliance costs are on page 69 in appendix 4. That is where the Government claim, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) did in his intervention, that there will be savings of about £1.9 billion over the first 10 years of operation of the new system.

I have read the White Paper several times and I recommend it to members of the Committee who have not read it. However, I recommend that they set aside at least four or five hours, because it is incredibly turgid and difficult to follow. I wonder whether the Minister has read it. When he replies perhaps he will tell us that he has read it and understands it.