Licensing Act 2003: Post-Legislative Scrutiny (Licensing Act 2003 Report)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I too served on the Select Committee and wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for both chairing the committee and securing this debate. I also thank the excellent staff and advisers who served us so well and the other members of the committee, from whom I learned a great deal.

Our task was a difficult one, which was made more complicated by the large number of amendments that have been made to the legislation since it came into force. Indeed, further amendments were being debated as the committee was sitting. We also had to consider many other changes such as the one raised by the noble Lords, Lord Mancroft and Lord Smith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins—namely the changes to the way that alcohol is now consumed, with the closure of thousands of pubs and the significant growth of off-trade and online purchasing. All this made it difficult to assess the impact of the legislation.

This difficulty is illustrated by the statistics. Alcohol-related violent crime has decreased but—as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, so powerfully described—alcohol-related illness has increased. Nevertheless, the committee made some powerful suggestions for future action. The Government’s much-delayed response was somewhat disappointing—it was certainly a mixture of disappointing and defensive, as the noble Lord, Lord Blair, put it. I hope that, as a result of today’s debate, the Government will at least be prepared to reconsider their response to some of our recommendations. Nobody can claim that all is well and no further action is needed. The worrying health statistics alone should give us cause for concern.

We should also be concerned by many other issues, including the failure of current legislation to apply airside and port side, the consequences of which were described by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, and the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh; and the inadequacy of resources to police and enforce existing legislation. Surely if our proposal to localise licence fee-setting is not to be accepted, the Minister should at least accept the well argued for need for a flat-rate increase. We should also be concerned about the absence of a useful national database of, for example, personal licence holders.

We should be especially concerned by the significant dissatisfaction we found with the licensing application and appeals processes. The licensing application procedures were variously described to us as “a lottery” and “a pantomime”. We heard of “standards falling far short”; “meek and mild” legal advisers; responsible bodies not engaging effectively, and often not at all; a lack of transparency, with decisions being made “behind closed doors”; and inadequate councillor training. We heard all too frequently of the lack of co-ordination between licensing and planning. We concluded that there would be considerable merit in the licensing application procedures mirroring those for planning applications, which, as we heard, include professionally qualified officers; a requirement for officials to proactively gather and analyse the views of interested people; and the preparation of a wide-ranging pre-meeting report offering detailed analysis, professional judgment and legal advice. We argue that, combined with improved training, that should all be part of the licensing procedures. Better still, as so eloquently argued by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, planning and licensing should be combined.

Although the Government have rejected that proposal, I welcome their recognition of the need for improved training, for greater synergies between planning and licensing, and for stronger guidance on how licensing hearings should be conducted. I hope that in her winding-up speech the Minister will provide details of the action to be taken and the timescales involved. Will she also do the same for licensing appeals, given the Government’s acceptance of the committee’s concerns about those procedures?

Of course, what emerges will lead to changes not to legislation but to guidance. So it is particularly disappointing that the Government have so easily dismissed the committee’s call for a return to consultation on and parliamentary scrutiny of draft guidance. The Government argue:

“The guidance is updated to reflect legislative changes; as these are factual changes it is not necessary to carry out a formal consultation”.


But this argument simply does not bear scrutiny. In their response to the committee’s report, the Government said that,

“there are a significant number of recommendations”—

at least 12 by my count—

“that the Government agrees will help improve the operation of the Act, for example clarifying points of practice for licensing committees by amending the statutory guidance”.

These are not simply “factual” or resulting from “legislative changes”, but rather—because, after all, this is what guidance is for—they will reflect and interpret legislation, improving, as the Government put it, the operation of the Act.

My noble friend Lady Grender, for instance, will wish to scrutinise the changes to guidance in respect of simultaneous temporary event notices given for adjacent plots of land. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, I was deeply disappointed by the Government’s rejection of our pragmatic proposals on disabled access, and I know that my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, who is keen to see more licensed premises engage with the problems of access for people with disabilities, will wish to scrutinise any changes that arise following the now promised further consultation. Where the Government offer new interpretations of legislation, there should be consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that the Minister will agree to look again at this decision.

In passing, since some of our recommendations are to be affected by changes to the LGA handbook, I ask for details of this mysterious publication and the status it has or will have.

The committee’s report covered numerous other issues, but I finish by touching on just one. Despite the undoubted benefits of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s Live Music Act, in which I played a small part in the other place, live music venues and other licensed premises still face significant challenges with, for example, 35% of music venues closing in the last decade. The committee considered one measure that could help: the introduction of a full “agent of change” principle into planning and licensing law. It has already been introduced for permitted developments, such as the change of an empty office building to residential use. But with music venues facing closure as a result of planning decisions, the committee proposed the introduction of the agent of change principle for all new developments. Since the Government’s consultation on such an approach ended over eight months ago, will the Minister update the House on progress? Will she tell us whether she supports the Bill from John Spellar MP—it has cross-party support—which seeks to put a full agent of change principle on a statutory footing?

Members of the committee and other noble Lords have raised important points and posed numerous questions for the Minister. Like them, I look forward to her response. I again thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for chairing the committee and securing today’s debate. I end by echoing the Christmas greetings of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, to one and all.

Betting Shops: Serious Crime

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The most recent data that we have are from the Commercial Victimisation Survey, which includes the whole industry of casinos, bookmakers and arcades. Therefore, we have information and we take it very seriously.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of research that shows a link between crime and anti-social behaviour and those areas where there are large clusters of betting shops. She has already acknowledged that some changes in planning legislation have made it slightly harder to open a betting shop. Does she not agree that the time has now come to go even further and make betting shops a single-use category under planning legislation?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not agree with the noble Lord on that point but I agree that councils, the police and licensing committees all need to take into consideration some of the harms that gambling can cause. However, some of the most dangerous gambling now takes place online, where no one can see it.

Olympics (Security)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an assumption about differences in statements that have been made. I have explained: if he looks at what G4S has been saying, it made it clear that it realised only recently that it was not going to be able to deliver. It rightly, as a company, put its hand up and said, “We did have problems; it was our mistake.” As I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), it is willing to provide funding to cover the extra costs that will be incurred. The right hon. Gentleman referred to other comments that have been made. I dealt with some of those in my statement.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Notwithstanding the abysmal failure of G4S to date, is it the intention once the games have begun that G4S will continue to recruit, train and schedule its security staff to Olympic venues, enabling some of our troops to go home early?

[Mrs May]

It is certainly the case that G4S will continue to provide staff at Olympic venues. Crucially, of course, it will also provide staff for the Paralympics. It will still make a significant contribution to venue security at the Olympic and Paralympic games. There will be more military personnel, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, they have already been informed that they will undertake these duties.

Olympics (Security)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I think that I can deal swiftly with the right hon. Lady’s response. First, I thank her for her support for the decision. Secondly, I should say that it is not a shambles when the Government take the action necessary to ensure that we are providing the venue security. Troops have always been part of the provision of venue security and we are taking the action that ensures that we have the confidence that the numbers will be there. She should have listened to the answer I gave to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about the timetable in relation to the G4S contract. It is a LOCOG contract, and it is for LOCOG to exercise the penalties within it.

As for the right hon. Lady’s reference to my hon. Friends the security Minister and the Minister for Immigration, I am sure that if neither of them had been speaking publicly about these issues today she would have complained about that as well. I am slightly sorry that she has not taken the approach of her noble Friend, Lord West, who has said, “I’m not trying to indulge in a blame game regarding Governments.” It is a pity that she could not, like him, be a bit more statesmanlike.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Safety and security is of paramount importance, and we should welcome the willingness of our armed forces to take on these additional responsibilities. Will the Home Secretary assure us that the additional troops will be provided with the necessary training, particularly for specialist tasks such as scanning? If G4S can bring additional people in, may we have an assurance that troop numbers will be reduced over time?

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those questions. Yes, I can absolutely give the assurance that the training will be provided. We will of course want to ensure that at all times we have the correct number and the correct mix of people available to undertake venue security duties. I assure him that the troops will be used for tasks for which they have been fully trained.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue and I remind him and other hon. Members that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee asked Members of Parliament to write to the Home Office to say whether they had any cases of the sort that the hon. Gentleman mentions. The work that we have been doing is of course clearing up the chaotic mess in the asylum system that was left, sadly, by the last Government.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

With tourism vital to places such as Bath, it is worrying that the more and more people who travel abroad from countries such as India and China tend not to come to this country because they think that the UKBA is unwelcoming. Should we not at least have a special visa for 2012 to commemorate the Olympics and the diamond jubilee, and have the application forms in the language of the tourist rather than in English?

[Mrs May]

I fully understand the benefits and importance of tourism to certain parts of the United Kingdom such as my right hon. Friend’s constituency. I assure him that special arrangements have been put in place by the UKBA for those who are travelling to be part of or to view the Olympics next summer.