CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS (REGISTERED CLUBS) (Hansard, 20 February 1957)

§ Mr. Cyril Black (Wimbledon)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law in England and Wales in respect of the supply of intoxicating liquor to children and young persons in registered clubs and to prohibit their entry into, and their employment in, such clubs during permitted hours. The purpose of the short Bill which I am seeking leave to introduce and which, if carried into law, will be called the Children and Young Persons (Registered Clubs) Act, 1957, can be explained very shortly.

For more than thirty years, it has been illegal for publicans to sell intoxicating liquor to persons under 18 or to allow persons under 14 to be in their bars. These provisions became the law as long ago as 1923 and were confirmed by Parliament as recently as 1953. In 1949, it was made illegal for publicans to employ persons under 18 in their bars. As far as I am aware, these provisions have not been objected to by the licensed trade, and I am confident that they carry the support of a vast majority of hon. Members of this House and of the general public.

Until recently, there were two exceptions to these general provisions, in that they did not apply in the case of occasional licences or in the case of registered clubs. Almost exactly a year ago, the House gave unopposed leave to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) to introduce a Bill to rectify the former of these omissions, and his Bill, in due course, became law under the title of the Occasional Licences and Young Persons Act, 1956.

The Bill I am asking leave to introduce deals with the latter of these omissions and contains three main provisions, as follows. First, no person under 14 years of age shall be allowed to be in the bar of a registered club during the permitted hours. Secondly, no person under 18 years of age shall knowingly be allowed to consume intoxicating liquor in any bar on the premises of a registered club. Thirdly, no person under 18 years of age shall be permitted to be employed in a bar of a registered club at a time when 443 the bar is open for the supply or consumption of intoxicating liquor.

It will, perhaps, come as a surprise to some hon. Members of the House to learn that it is necessary for a Bill to be introduced to achieve these objects. It is somewhat alarming to realise that, as the law stands at present, if a young child ordered, and was served with, a double whisky at the bar of a registered club, no offence would be committed and no action could be taken.

I do not wish to detain the House unduly, but I must draw attention, in support of the need for the Bill, to the very serious increase in drunkenness among young people which has taken place in recent years. The report entitled, "Social Problems of Post-War Youth, 1946–54", contains these challenging statements: For youths aged 14 to 16 the incidence of drink offences fell by nearly 50 per cent. between 1946 and 1949; but it increased fivefold between 1949 and 1954. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that easy money, the increasingly bad example of immediate elders, the difficulties of licensees, and the laxity of management of registered clubs have brought about this staggering reversal of trend. An analysis carried out by the Economic Research Council in respect of the problem for the years 1953 to 1955 reveals that While offences of drunkenness among persons aged 21 and over fell by just over 1 per cent. between 1953 and 1955, offences among persons aged under 21 rose by 43 per cent. in those two years. A few days ago, the Chairman of Liverpool Licensing Committee was reported as expressing great alarm that 444 in 1956 Liverpool had the highest number of convictions for drunkenness for thirty years. There were 4,187 convictions, representing an increase of more than 1,000 over the previous two years. The chairman continued: The most disturbing feature of the increase was the fact that 626 of the convictions last year were of people under 20 years of age, 88 of them being under 18. He concluded: I do not wish it to be assumed that these young people necessarily obtained the liquor in public houses. My Bill would seek only to employ the same safeguards in the case of registered clubs that have been applied in public houses for many years. I have tried to state my case clearly and without exaggeration and I hope that the House will see fit to give me leave to introduce the Bill.