Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling local authorities to include powers within their Special Cumulative Impact Policies to make the Reduce the Strength initiatives mandatory within a given area where the need for them is proven to exist.

Applying a standard licence condition to all premises in a cumulative impact zone would represent a significant departure from a key principle of the Licensing Act 2003, that conditions must be tailored to the individual type, location and characteristics of the premises concerned. In addition, there has been no large-scale evaluation of the effectiveness of the existing voluntary Reducing the Strength schemes. Their impact in reducing alcohol harms remains unproven.