Licensing Bill [Lords]
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Standing Committee D
Tuesday 1 April 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair]
8.55 am
The Chairman: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Standing Committee on the Licensing Bill. I have a couple of housekeeping announcements to make. While I am in the Chair, hon. Members may remove their jackets if they wish to do so. I cannot speak for Mr. Benton. Members of the Committee will have to wait to hear what he says on the subject. Having wiled away the winter on the Communications Bill with the Minister and one or two others who are present today, we now seem set fair to see out the spring with this Bill. All being well, however, we shall be out of Committee to see some of the summer. That brings us neatly to the programme resolution.
The Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting (Dr. Kim Howells): I beg to move,
That—
(1) during proceedings on the Licensing Bill [Lords] the Standing Committee do meet when the House is sitting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8.55 am and at 2.30 pm, except that on Thursday 3rd April the Committee shall not meet at 2.30 pm and on Thursday 1st May the Committee shall not meet;
(2) 18 sittings in all shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill by the Committee;
(3) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order, namely Clause 1, Schedules 1 and 2, Clauses 2 to 5, Clause 179, Clauses 6 to 9, Schedule 3, Clauses 10 to 111, Schedule 4, Clauses 112 to 178, Schedule 5, Clauses 180 to 198, Schedules 6 to 8, New Clauses, New Schedules and remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings on Clause 1, Schedules 1 and 2, Clauses 2 to 5 and Clause 179 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Thursday 3rd April;
(5) the proceedings on Clauses 6 to 9, Schedule 3 and Clauses 10 to 46 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5 pm on Thursday 10th April;
(6) the proceedings on Clauses 47 to 59 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Tuesday 29th April;
(7) the proceedings on Clauses 60 to 95 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Tuesday 6th May;
(8) the proceedings on Clauses 96 to 111, Schedule 4 and Clauses 112 to 142 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Tuesday 13th May;
(9) the proceedings on Clauses 143 to 174 shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Thursday 15th May;
(10) the proceedings on Clauses 175 to 178, Schedule 5, Clauses 180 to 198, Schedules 6 to 8, New Clauses, New Schedules and remaining proceedings on the Bill shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Tuesday 20th May.
It gives me great pleasure, Mr. Gale, to serve on another Committee under your chairmanship. You are a fine Chairman. I am not sure that all members of the Committee will necessarily have such affectionate memories as I do of the way in which you handled
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the problem amendments to the Communications Bill, but as you said those proceedings got us through the winter months.
The Bill will greatly modernise the alcohol-licensing regime in this country. It is a balanced package of freedoms and safeguards. It clamps down on crime and disorder and antisocial behaviour that is perpetrated by the minority, while giving the responsible majority of people more freedom and choice of how they spend their leisure time.
Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire): I wish to match the effusiveness of the Minister. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale, again—if that is the operative word in such circumstances.
We agree with the Minister that the Bill is as important a piece of legislation as any before Parliament. It will affect every aspect of society's cultural, social and leisure activities. It is a far-reaching and wide-ranging Bill. The Minister is greatly respected as someone who always aims to create good, practical and beneficial law. I am sure that we will not be disappointed by his responses during our debates.
I am not criticising the draftsmen of the Bill or the civil servants at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who have spent many months, if not years, on its gestation. It has been a massive task. Unlike the Communications Bill, however, this Bill has not received pre-legislative scrutiny. Despite such scrutiny, that Bill still had a fairly bumpy passage in Committee.
There are considerable differences between the White Paper and the final product. The Bill is complex and we shall make every effort to ensure that, when it is on the statute book, it is workable and practical and will enhance the lives of members of the community, but not over-regulate those activities that should be beyond regulation.
In our opinion, the programme resolution needs to be more flexible. We have no criticism of the end date and we are happy to work with it, but we should discuss the guillotines. We have only three sittings—that is, until lunchtime on Thursday—to discuss some critical elements of the Bill. Those include schedule 1, which deals with entertainment and is highly contentious, the licensing authorities and the debate on magistrates versus local authorities, which is at the core of the Bill. There is also the matter of the central licensing authority and the general duties of licensing authorities. Those are dealt with in critical clauses and we are expected to debate and scrutinise them in three two-and-a-half-hour sittings.
We have no criticism of the total time allotted, but I put it to the usual channels that Opposition Members do not think that enough time is allotted to the earlier critical clauses and schedules. We hope that there will be a rethink, if we have not done justice to many of the clauses by Thursday lunchtime.
Question put and agreed to.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that there is a financial resolution in connection with the Bill and
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copies of it are available in the Room. I also remind hon. Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule, Mr. Benton and I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting.Clause 1
Licensable activities and qualifying club activities
Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight): I beg to move amendment No. 96, in
clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave out 'regulated entertainment' and insert 'premises for public gatherings'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take the following: Amendment No. 97, in
clause 1, page 2, line 4, leave out 'regulated entertainment' and insert 'premises for public gatherings'.
New schedule 1—Provision of Premises for Public Gatherings—
''The Secretary of State shall make regulations which shall be subject to the negative resolution procedure and which—
(a) define ''the provision of premises for public gatherings'' to have the normal meaning of those words save that they exclude premises which have planning permission (or established use certificates) for use for public gatherings of the size contemplated, and—
(i) have a valid fire safety certificate; or
(ii) have regularly in the last five years been used for public gatherings of the size contemplated; and
(b) define ''the size contemplated'' to mean contemplated by the organizer of the gathering.'.
Mr. Turner: It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. I have not had the privilege of doing so before. I am sure that you will chair the Committee with great fairness and a desire for us to proceed as rapidly as possible through the business, so I do not propose to take too long on these amendments and proposed new schedule 1.
The amendments would remove the provision to regulate entertainment and would replace it with a provision to license public gatherings where there have not been regular public gatherings before. They would do so for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) outlined from the Front Bench.
Schedule 1 defines ''entertainment'' in great detail. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) referred to motocross events—I believe that that is another term for banger racing. Such events took place near Wanborough in her constituency and caused great concern to local people. The schedule does not cover that type of event and I am sure that hon. Members can think of many other events that are not covered.
Hon. Members will know that, in another place, many efforts were made to add to the list of exemptions. For example, there was an exemption for garden fêtes, garden parties and other such entertainments, and amendments on unamplified music. Is the schedule effective, or is it merely confusing? If it is not very effective, is it really necessary? Is there a better way to regulate such entertainments?
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I assume, from what the Minister said on Second Reading, and having heard that debate, that the purpose of the regulation was to ensure that people's quiet enjoyment of their own property was not disturbed and that disturbance was not caused to the public in general. I assume that there is no prejudice against outdoor wrestling, compared with outdoor motor cycle events, that it was not thought that scratch race meetings held on private property cause less, or more, trouble than outdoor wrestling, or that it was not because we have a view on whether it matters that a play is or is not scripted.
Would the mime artists in Covent Garden be covered by the Bill? I believe they would be covered, because there is no script and there is a provision for off-the-cuff entertainment. Under the schedule, a single person could put on a play. That provision is slightly arbitrary. There should be some reasoning behind the content of the schedule. I considered the matter another way, by asking what is the problem that the schedule is attempting to put right? The problem is large numbers of people converging on a place and causing noise or other inconvenience to members of the public, either outdoors in public places or in their enjoyment of their private homes and business premises.
The schedule is unnecessary. We should not go to the trouble of defining every different entertainment with a range of inclusions and exclusions. Hon. Members may be taken with this part of my argument, if by no other. It is not necessary to deal with all the amendments printed on pages 506 to 509 of the amendment paper. We should not try to define what is and is not an entertainment; we should instead try to remedy the problem of what is noisy and disruptive.
Public nuisance and environmental health legislation contains provisions to protect people, whether on private premises or in public, from excess noise—excess amplified music—and other types of nuisance, such as smoke. If somebody desires to hold a bonfire in a public place where it has not traditionally been held, that could cause difficulty to some of their neighbours. That would be covered by existing legislation. It is not necessary to regulate entertainment. What is necessary is the regulation of large numbers of people coming together in a particular place, regardless of their purpose.
The Bill covers too many activities that have taken place quietly and without trouble. My intention is that amendments Nos. 96 and 97 should remove the effect of schedule 1. We could limit the application of the regulations by defining public gatherings. If hon. Members turn to page 522 of the amendment paper, they will see that new schedule 1 would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations that define both public gatherings and the size that is contemplated for a public gathering. I would have preferred the definitions to be included in the Bill.
Under new schedule 1, the Secretary of State would be able to define a public gathering within
''the normal meaning of those words''—
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that is, not a private gathering to which people are invited—
''save that they exclude premises which have planning permission (or established use certificates) for use of public gatherings of the size contemplated''.
Clearly, such a gathering is acceptable—whether it is noisy is a matter for environmental health or public nuisance legislation. Those excluded premises must
''have a valid fire certificate'',
which is a necessity, or they may
''have regularly in the last five years been used''
for this purpose, whether it is for a church fete that takes place once a year in the vicarage garden, or a barn dance that takes place three times a year in a farmer's barn, or whether it is in a town.
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