Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Written Statement of 27 February 2025 on Consultation Results: Alcohol in licensed pavement areas, HCWS477, how many licensed premises will need to obtain licensing variations when easements expire.

As explained in the written statement of 27 February 2025, those businesses with an on-sales only licence that have taken advantage of the Covid era easement and wish to continue off-sales after 31 March will need to obtain a licensing variation. According to recent statistics published on GOV.UK, as of October 2024, 2490 premises were taking advantage of the easement.

To minimise the impact on businesses, the Government has amended statutory licensing guidance to make it easier and cheaper for businesses to apply for this variation. This guidance advises licensing authorities to initially treat applications for such amendments as a minor variation to the licence. This will minimise any transitional cost and bureaucracy for those affected by making the process quicker and much cheaper – costing £89 - than major licence variations.

As we made clear in the Written Statement, the Government will monitor the decisions made around the country by local authorities on these requests for licence variations, in liaison with the beer and pub industries, and will assess any evidence that pubs where the current easements have been working successfully are being denied the opportunity to continue making off-sales beyond April 2025 without reasonable cause. In those circumstances, and notwithstanding the results of last year’s consultation exercise, we will consider what further steps may need to be taken through the licensing regime to support our local pubs.