COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 19 June 2003)

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 8. I shall speak also to Amendment No. 10.

Within the definitions of responsible authorities in the Bill, Amendments Nos. 8 and 10 restored the position prior to amendments accepted in this House. When the Bill left this House for consideration in another place, the responsible authorities it described were several. They included the police; the fire authority; the enforcing authority for health arid safety law; the local authority for the area in which the premises are situated; any licensing authority in whose area part of the premises are situated, including the one considering the application; various bodies concerned with applications involving vessels; and other persons prescribed by the Secretary of State.

A responsible authority is essentially an expert body to be notified when an application is made, which can make representations about the licensing objectives.

925 For example, the police will consider carefully the applicant's proposals for preventing crime and disorder on his premises. If they are adequate, the police will not need to intervene; if the police are dissatisfied with the proposals, they have the right to make representations to the licensing authority.

When this House amended the Bill, it removed the description in the original text of environmental health officers. It is vital that they be consulted, because they have technical expertise in areas such as noise nuisance. They need to scrutinise the steps an applicant intends to take to prevent nuisance.

Amendment No. 8 restored them to the list. The amendments in this House also replaced environmental health officers with a description of, the local authority in which the premises are situated". The local authority is the licensing authority. The effect was to allow the licensing authority to make representations to itself.

It may be helpful if I remind the House that amendments were moved in another place by the Official Opposition that would have removed the local authority as a responsible authority, but would not have restored the important status of the environmental health authority, which was the added effect of the government amendments. The government amendments were therefore preferred. In the House of Commons, both sides of the House were in relative harmony on this matter.

While the Bill was being considered here, a further amendment by this House also duplicated part of the changes by including in the list of responsible authorities all licensing authorities in whose area part of the premises are situated. The list originally included only those licensing authorities—other than the one in receipt of the application—in whose areas part of the premises are situated; namely, where premises straddle local authority boundaries. Amendment No. 10 restored this arrangement.

The amendments raise two important issues for the Bill. The first is fairness. The local authority is given the functions of a licensing authority. If it can make representations to itself and by that means generate a hearing to consider those representations, the licensing authority through its licensing committee would be prosecution, witness, jury, judge and executioner in the same court. That cannot be proper, and it would trigger a number of human rights issues. Let us not be technical about it; it simply would not be right or fair. I hope that the House will agree.

We are not hamstringing the licensing authority; where local authorities have particular statutory responsibility for expert matters that directly impact on the licensing objectives, they are responsible authorities. The environmental health authority is the local authority. The enforcing agency for health and safety is normally the local authority. The planning authority is the local authority. These are all responsible authorities for the purposes of the Bill. In 926 these expert capacities, the local authority can already make representations, and can be heard fairly and properly by the licensing committee.

The second important issue is deregulation. One way in which we are deregulating in this case is by reducing significantly the number of routine hearings to which licensing currently gives rise. Almost everything in the six existing licensing regimes generates regular and routine hearings. The aim of the Bill is to ensure that only matters of proper and relevant dispute give rise to hearings.

Under the Bill, a hearing will be necessary only if one of the expert and professional bodies, or a local resident, residents' association or local business is dissatisfied with the proposals in the operating schedule. If everyone is content, the application will be granted and the operating schedule will come into force. But if a licensing authority can generate hearings whether or not the expert bodies and local residents are content, we have opened the door back to the old bureaucracy and red tape, which could in some areas—I do not say all areas—reduce the deregulation effects of the Bill. So, we are focusing here on problem premises. We are targeting resources there and on an effective operating schedule.

For those reasons—fairness and the desire to reduce red tape—I hope that the House will welcome the changes made to the Bill in another place.