§ Mr. CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of clubs of all classes registered, on the 1st January, 1903, and the number so registered 1st January, 1907; how many full and how many off-licences were extinguished during those five years; how many new full and off-licences were issued in the four years ending 31st December, 1906; and how many clubs have been removed from the register by legal process under the Act of 1902, giving the number struck off the register for each year.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone) All the information available in answer to this Question, is to be found in the volume of Licensing Statistics for 1906. 856 6,371 clubs were registered in the year 1903, and on the 1st January, 1907, there were probably about 6,680 registered clubs in existence. This latter figure is arrived at by deducting from the number existing on the 1st January, 1906, the number struck off during the year. The expression "full licence" means, strictly speaking, public-house licences as distinguished from beer-houses and other on-licences, but if my hon. friend desires the figures for on-licences generally, as against off-licences, I may say that on the 1st January, 1903, there were 100,766 on-licences, and on the 1st January, 1907, four years later, there were probably, as I informed the hon. Member for Lincoln on the 27th May, about 97,700. There are no figures of off-licences available for the 1st January, 1903, but for the 1st January, 1905, the number was 25,405, while for the 1st January, 1907, it is estimated at 25,100. New on-licences have been granted as follows: —In 1903, 240 (approximately); in 1904, 121 (approximately); in 1905, 53; and in 1906, 56. 192 new off-licences were granted in 1905, and 211 in 1906. Figures for earlier years are not available. The number of clubs struck off the register is as follows: In 1903, 67; in 1904, 73; in 1905, 62; and in 1906, 41.