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Standing Committee D
Tuesday 8 April 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]
Clause 3
Licensing authorities
Amendment proposed [3 April]: No. 59, in
8.55 am
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 60, in
clause 3, page 2, leave out line 40.
Amendment No. 61, in
clause 3, page 2, leave out line 41.
Amendment No. 64, in
Amendment No. 62, in
clause 7, page 4, line 31, leave out subsection (2).
Amendment No. 63, in
clause 8, page 5, line 33, leave out subsection (10).
Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight): I am grateful to you, Mr. Benton, for reminding the Committee of where we had reached at the end of our sitting on Thursday. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) had alerted me to that fact a moment ago. We were discussing whether the licensing authorities should be those bodies and people listed under subsection (1). My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) suggested that we should at least consider whether there was justification in moving from licensing justices being the licensing authority for liquor licensing to being the authority for all licensing purposes as set out under amendment No. 59. If I have misinterpreted the amendment, perhaps my hon. Friend will correct me.
I want to concentrate on the other amendments in the group. They could be considered to be contradictory in spirit. Amendments Nos. 60 and 61 would remove paragraphs (f) and (g) of subsection 1, which refer to the sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple and the under-treasurer of the Middle Temple. Amendment No. 64 would make the university of Cambridge a licensing authority. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire did not table them for their intrinsic merit. He was looking for a philosophy from the Government about which bodies they want to be liquor-licensing authorities.
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There has been no great difficulty, certainly not in my constituency, with liquor licensing resting with licensing magistrates. Will the Minister explain why those responsibilities are to be transferred to local authorities, which are elected by the local residents, yet the Government are proposing the inclusion of two people who are not elected by local residents? Indeed, so individual are they that further on in the Bill it becomes impossible for them to appoint a sub-committee. A sub-committee cannot be appointed from a committee of one. That is my interpretation of amendment No. 62.
Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster): The Bill will extend the historical privileges that apply to the City of London. Both the Middle and Inner Temples are partly in the city of Westminster and, for historical reasons, licensing matters have rested with the under-treasurer of the Middle Temple. I do not want to speak on behalf of the Government; I am sure that the Minister has words of wisdom to pass on to us. Rather than interfere with that process, I suppose that the Government thought it sensible to maintain the long-standing privileges of the City of London.
Mr. Turner: I must confess that I like that argument. If the Government wish to maintain historic privileges and traditions, I am all for that. If the amendment were subjected to a Division, I would be happy to vote against my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire who wants the removal of the two paragraphs. However, I support strongly his amendment No. 64 to include the university of Cambridge. We should undoubtedly maintain some of the historical privileges of that secondary institution, but why does the Minister propose the retention of some historical privileges and traditions but not others? What is wrong with the Universities (Wine Licences) Act 1743, for example? What do the Government so dislike about that Act to make them repeal its provisions in this Bill?
What is wrong with retaining the powers of the university of Cambridge? Is the Government's decision something to do with the cross-border nature of the university? Some of its colleges are outside the boundary of the city, therefore, exactly the same geographical considerations apply as to the Inner and Middle Temples. The university is a cross-boundary institution and it is not convenient for licensing power to rest with either one local authority in the more conventional meaning of that word, or another. Will the Minister explain?
I am happy to go down either the road of removing all historical privileges and traditions or of retaining them, although I would be happier to retain them. I cannot see why the Minister is riding two bicycles in opposite directions in this clause.
Jim Knight (South Dorset): Or him.
Mr. Turner: The hon. Gentleman says ''Or him'' referring to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, but my hon. Friend is riding two bicycles because he is trying to draw information out of the Minister.
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The Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting (Dr. Kim Howells): That was quick. It is a great pleasure to see you chairing this Committee on a Tuesday morning, Mr. Benton.
Amendment No. 59 is similar to one moved on Report and on Third Reading in another place which was debated extensively. The subject is central to the modernising elements of the Bill. Schedule 7 to the Bill repeals the Licensing Act 1964, so amendment No. 59 cannot stand alone—there would no longer be a section 2 of the 1964 Act and no definition of what licensing justices are or the extent of their jurisdiction. Notwithstanding those flaws, Amendment No. 59 would maintain the licensing justices as the licensing authority for the sale of alcohol by retail. It would transfer control of entertainment and late night refreshment to the licensing justices from the local authorities and duties in respect of registered members clubs—which will be replaced in the Bill by qualifying clubs—from the magistrates courts.
The amendment does not propose the status quo, as has been suggested, but wholesale change, which is unjustifiable. The Bill deals with six existing licensing regimes, not only with alcohol licensing. Integrating those regimes is a key way of reducing red tape. Five of the regimes—public entertainment, cinema, theatre, night cafes and late-night refreshment—are under the control of local authorities and only alcohol is controlled by the licensing justices. It does not make sense to transfer five licensing regimes to the justices, when integration could be achieved by bringing one under the control of the local authorities.
There is also a common misunderstanding about the status of the licensing justices, which do not sit as a magistrates court. They were established by statute as an administrative committee elected by the magistrates in the relevant petty sessions area. They are not bound by the normal rules of evidence and they are technically free to receive and consider hearsay evidence and petitions. I make those points to stress that they are administrative not judicial bodies, although in certain circumstances they will have a quasi-judicial quality. If Parliament had wanted a judicial process, it would have given the job to magistrates courts, not licensing justices.
Mr. Field: In fairness to the Minister, I have served on a London local authority and was on the licensing committee for some time and there is a quasi-judicial element to licensing within local authorities—not least in the fact that votes on such matters cannot be whipped. The same, of course, applies to planning. It is a little disingenuous to suggest that there is no sense of licensing committees being quasi-judicial. Indeed, legal officers involved with such committees make it clear that the role of the council is quasi-judicial and that the committees are therefore not to be persuaded by party-political considerations.
Dr. Howells: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for expanding on that point, which is important.
Once it is accepted that licensing is a regulatory and administrative process undertaken in the interests of the community, the question arises of which body should most appropriately represent those interests.
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Licensing justices are accountable only to the magistrates that elect them to the licensing committee and the higher courts. That cannot be said to provide democratic accountability to the community. I stress the words ''democratic accountability'' because administrative processes should be in the hands of the democratically elected representatives of the local electorate. Regulatory processes should be entrusted to those best placed to undertake, on an informed basis, the balancing exercise of deciding what is in the wider community interest in respect of licensing decisions.
Indeed, if the licensing authority does its job badly, it should be possible for local people to give the authority an electoral kick, if that is justified. Licensing justices are elected by magistrates and at the moment only they can deliver such kicks. It is not just the Government who have drawn such conclusions about the scope for reducing red tape and the principle of accountability. The Better Regulation Task Force, acting on behalf of industry, also recommended to the Government that the local authorities should have that role in future.
Now that I have established the points of practicality and principle that justify the approach taken in the Bill, I hope that the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire will not press amendment No. 59 to a vote. Amendments Nos. 60 to 63 would remove the ability of the Inner and Middle Temples to act as licensing authorities. Those bodies are not arcane institutions from which privilege should be stripped. The Committee may be unaware that they are local authorities in their own right. I hope that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) is listening, because I have sought special advice on the subject. The university of Cambridge is not a local authority; it was granted a privilege by royal charter to sell wine within the boundaries of the university. The Temples and the university are very different organisations in that sense. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point.
To those of us who represent areas of the country that are not like that represented by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), or like the ancient university of Cambridge, the system seems archaic. The Bill would establish the local authority as the licensing authority and given that the Temples have shown that they wish to continue in their role as licensing authorities and that the other London local authorities are in agreement—that is important—it makes complete sense for them to act in that way. I hope that the amendments will therefore be withdrawn.
On amendment No. 64, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge university, through his ability to grant licences to sell wine at the university, enjoys a privilege that cannot be justified in modern times. His authority is based on an ancient charter. Once again, what of proper democratic accountability? It is extremely difficult to imagine any justification for allowing a university to act as a licensing authority, other than some kind of over-nostalgic harking back to traditions that are of neither use nor ornament today. I hope that that amendment, too, will be withdrawn.
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