Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I apologise that I have not been able to take part in earlier discussions on this Bill. When you are a member of a party with one representative here, it is a little difficult at times. I am very keen to support Amendment 210, which relates to a matter very close to my heart. I declare my interest as a vice-president of Mencap.

In 1981, I was fortunate enough to introduce legislation—there are some Members in the Chamber now who were in the other place at that time—that became the Disabled Persons Act 1981. That provided for access to places for disabled people—buildings, places of entertainment, et cetera—that required a provision to be made. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has said, the trouble is that there is no comeback. There were not enough teeth in that Act and there have not been enough teeth in successive pieces of legislation over the 35 years that have gone on since then. There needs to be the sort of provision built in here to ensure that what is agreed as public policy actually does take place. I press the Minister to seriously consider accepting this or bringing in equal provisions to ensure that this happens.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I now speak to Amendment 212, which is on placing child protection as a statutory consultee for statements of licencing policy. The background is that, if we come back to the Licensing Act 2003, this is a modest attempt to add another objective. We have the protection of children from harm as one of the existing four.

Despite the existence of this objective, and the fact that Section 13(4)(f) of the Act recognises child protection as the body responsible for this objective, Section 5(3) does not include child protection as a statutory consultee in respect of statements of licensing policies—SLPs, as we know them. Every local authority is required to produce SLPs outlining how it aims to uphold the licensing objectives in its specific area. SLPs are important local documents and should be taken into account in all licensing decisions. As such, they are important in the way in which child protection issues relate to licensing, and should be highlighted and acted upon.

Under the present arrangements, statutory consultees are,

“(a) the chief officer of police for the licensing authority’s area, (b) the fire and rescue authority for that area, (c) such persons as the licensing authority considers to be representative of holders of premises licences issued by the authority, (d) such persons as the licensing authority considers to be representative holders of club premises certificates issued by that authority, (e) such persons as the licensing authority considers to be representative of holders of personal licences issued by that authority, and (f) such other persons as the licensing authority considers to be representative of businesses and residents in its area”.

The fact that no child protection body is included in that list of statutory consultees is a clear legislative gap, one that could easily be closed by this modest amendment. The greatly increased focus on safeguarding within licensing as a result of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation case suggests that there is now a pressing need for this.

Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I rise with some trepidation as this Bill applies to England only, although there are some consequential effects on Wales. As I was speaking in Grand Committee on the Welfare Reform Bill upstairs a moment ago on initiatives in Wales which should be copied in England, I hope that initiatives in this area will be copied by the National Assembly for Wales and I very much hope that the spirit of the amendments, some of which I have my name alongside, can be taken on board by the Government, even if the wording is not perfect.

I welcome the address made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in opening this debate and pay tribute to the work that she has undertaken in this context, which is recognised all round. I come from a generation in Wales where we used to have to smuggle ourselves out to the pubs because of the general ban on alcohol that used to exist. In previous generations, understandably and rightly, there had been a clamping down on alcohol use in Wales. My parents’ generation referred to whisky, for example, as medicine and very rarely used it. In fact, the pledge was a general feature of society there. My generation was responsible for a movement in another direction. The pendulum swung and is still swinging in that direction and it is time to start it swinging back.

I have no doubt at all that alcohol is one of the greatest problems that we have in our society today. I say that not as a teetotaller although I restrict myself two months of the year to not touching the stuff because it is so important that we have self-discipline as well as discipline that may come from the statute book. But in terms of violence, the break-up of families, poor performance at work—one remembers David Lloyd George’s initiatives in the First World War to try and clamp down on alcohol because of the effect on the war effort—criminality, injuries and the pressure on accident and emergency departments in hospitals, and the social disruption that arises from it, we can see the effect all around. The effect seems to be hitting people younger and younger. Children at the ages of 11, 12 and 13 are showing the effects of alcohol. That cannot be acceptable.

I realise that in an area of social responsibility such as this it is sometimes difficult to legislate. However, there must be pressure to turn the tide in another direction. Amendment 202 refers to establishing a duty to reduce alcohol harm. Amendment 328 covers the assessment of alcohol damage in local communities. Amendment 329 would provide appropriate places for representatives of alcohol services. These modest steps, taken together, would add up to a message that would come across. I implore the Minister, even if he cannot accept the amendments, to accept the thrust of the argument that lies behind them, because we have to do something about this great scourge of our society today.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Earl will accept these amendments. In many respects they are very modest. I have grave doubts about the extent to which we will be able to influence the course of events in this arena with the changes that we have before us. I am grateful to him for responding in his long letter of 20 October to all of us who raised a variety of questions at Second Reading. He endeavoured to address some of the topics that I had raised on alcohol, labelling, licensing and so on. However, I still believe that ultimately the major issues on alcohol policy will need to be addressed at the centre.

One can do nothing about the cost of alcohol at local level. It must be done centrally. That is being addressed—but inadequately. The marketing of alcohol is something over which local authorities and well-being boards will have no control whatever. The drinks industry is increasingly marketing on the internet and targeting youngsters, particularly in the social networking sphere. I heard recently that one-third of young girls aged 13 to 16 surveyed in Essex are suffering blackouts from excessive drinking. If they continue to drink like that, they will not be ill immediately—they will have good fun and games—but within 10 years, when they get to their late 20s, they will have real problems. What will health and well-being boards be able to do about that? I have been pestering the noble Earl on the labelling issue for quite some time. Nothing can be done about that at local level.

There is one issue that we could have done something about at local level, but we missed our chance. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will recall that when we debated the Police and Social Responsibility Bill, we addressed the freedom that people now have to issue licences on a much more liberal basis than used to be the case—we now have a proliferation of off-licences everywhere—but were unable to effect any changes that would have given local authorities greater powers to limit the way in which licences are granted locally. Again, nothing can be done by health and well-being boards.

These are major topics and I wonder how much power there will be to change the course of events. These issues all link to related topics such as obesity and diabetes. It is important that we do not delude ourselves into believing that there will be massive changes without a strong drive from the centre. The nudge-nudge approach will not work with the big drinks industry. Neither, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned this morning, will it work in the context of food, with salt, fats and sugar. These are real problems for people and very little change will be effected at local level; it must all be done centrally.

I come back to the amendments before us. They are very modest and I see no reason why they cannot be accepted. In particular, I will look at the endeavour to achieve change at GP level. Many GPs have been very innovative. Initiatives have been offered to them to effect changes and a number of them have taken up the cudgels and worked adventurously to identify the problems at local level in their communities. Many more have not been doing anything like what should have been done. The Government have declined to accept the screening possibility that was mentioned. Again, I hope that they will be prepared to review their position on that.

Overall, I urge the Government not to reject the modest changes here, but to accept the amendments.