Clause 7.—(OPERATION OF PROVISIONS AS TO PERMITTED HOURS.) (Hansard, 6 June 1961)

§ Mr. Vosper
I beg to move, in page 14, line 24, to leave out from "first" to "hours" in line 26 and to insert: ten minutes after the end of any period forming part of the permitted".

§ Mr. Speaker
It would probably be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time the Amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice), to page 14, to leave out lines 24 to 32; and the following three Amendments:
In line 24, to leave out from "first" to "hours" in line 26 and to insert: five minutes after the end of any period forming part of the permitted". In line 24, to leave out "quarter of an hour" and to insert "five minutes".
In line 26, to leave out "quarter of an hour" and to insert "five minutes".

§ Mr. Vosper
This Amendment relates to drinking-up time. The House will recall that the Bill as introduced proposed 15 minutes of drinking-up time both in the afternoon and in the evening. The Government are convinced that the conception of drinking-up time is logical, that there should be a period between the sale of the last drink and the consumption of the last drink, that the idea that it is possible to purchase a drink a few seconds before closing time and then drink it is wrong, and that what happens, in fact, now is that the law is not obeyed. The Government have sought, therefore, to introduce the conception of drinking-up time to provide for the period between the sale of the last drink and its consumption.
It was argued in Committee that 15 minutes was too generous a period for this exercise. I accepted the spirit of the arguments in Committee and suggested that I should move an Amendment on Report, saying that the period would probably be reduced to 10 minutes. The Amendment that I have moved reduces from 15 minutes to 10 minutes the period of drinking-up 1002 time both in the afternoon and in the evening.
I have noticed that the reaction in the Press and elsewhere to my announcement has been against making the concession. It has been said that 15 minutes' drinking-up time is the right allowance. Nevertheless, I believe that 10 minutes is a reasonable time for this exercise. I say that because I note that the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) wishes to reduce the time still further to five minutes. If that were done, I think the exercise would cease to be sensible because, once again, there would be a lot of abuse, as there is in present circumstances.

§ Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)
Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to me—I am an innocent in these matters—what service to temperance is achieved by compelling a man to finish his drink quickly rather than take it slowly?

§ Mr. Vosper
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman wants an answer to that question.
I stand by the declaration that 10 minutes is about the right time for the consumption of drinks purchased just before closing time. If one accepted the proposal that it should be reduced to five minutes, what we are trying to achieve would be rendered useless. I suggest that we should stick to the 10 minutes proposed in the Amendment.

§ Sir F. Soskice
I understand, Mr. Speaker, that you have said that the Amendment in my name, in page 14, to leave out lines 24 to 32, should be discussed now. I shall state the reasons actuating me in putting it down. We have several alternatives—15 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes and no time at all. The Amendment to leave out lines 24 to 32 would remove any provisions for drinking-up time at all.
I put the Amendment down because it seemed to me that the view of some licensees, and particularly of a manager in my constituency who feels strongly on the matter, should at least be before the House for consideration when we came to a conclusion in this debate. That view was advanced during the Committee stage, but it was not exhaustively explored. The manager in question says 1003 that broadly speaking it makes no difference whether one has drinking-up time or whether one does not. Whether one stops at half-past ten or at twenty minutes to eleven in either case there is the difficulty that some awkward customers will not have gone by the end of the permitted time, whatever it is.
9.45 p.m.
His contention is that at the moment the police are somewhat tolerant in this matter, and so long as they are satisfied that he is doing his best to dispose of his awkward customers they will, in practice, give him some leeway to clear his premises. He says that if we give him drinking-up time what we will really do is to put an extra burden on him. At the moment the police exercise a certain tolerance, realising his difficulties. His anxiety is that if we apply a drinking-up period the police will say: "You have the extra time. The onus is now on you to see that your customers are out by the time the drinking-up time is over".
He will find himself confronted with the same difficulty, the difficulty which arises when one sees in the corner of a public house a plethoric-looking gentleman talking to two over-dressed ladies at a rather beer-stained table. The publican shouts "Last orders, gentlemen, please" and they automatically advance to the bar and demand more to drink. That happens automatically. They do it to cement a rather recently formed acquaintance and it makes things very difficult for the publican. I am slightly embellishing his account, but this is what he put to me—I am not embellishing it much. This is the sort of situation which arises in practice.
He is seriously concerned. He says. "Now at half-past ten I know that I shall have a little, shall I say tacit, assistance to get people of that sort out. If you give me ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, they will be there at the end of that time, and when that time has elapsed I shall be expected to have got them out and I still will not have been able to do it." In his opinion, the desire to make things easier for the licensee is likely to have the opposite effect.
I place those views of the manager whom I have mentioned before the House in support of my contention. The 1004 Committee upstairs and the House have already meditated on these matters and the more general argument about the difficulty which in any event is created for those who have to find their way home, particularly in country districts, who will find it much more difficult to get transport at twenty minutes to eleven plus the clearing up time.
I say no more on my Amendment. Assuming that the House feels that that is not a reason which commends itself, I think that ten minutes is an appropriate period. If in principle we should have drinking-up time, let it be a time which is likely to produce the result that there is a drinking up instead of a semi-drinking up, which would be the likely result of 50 per cent. of the ten minutes, namely, five minutes.
I submit that my Amendment is one which the House should accept. It will presumably result in the rejection of the first Amendment to line 24, and I invite the Minister to give further consideration to this before the Bill goes to another place. I prefer ten minutes to five minutes, but on the whole I put it to the House that there should be a nil period instead of any period.

§ Mr. G. Thomas
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for the case he advanced. I was fascinated with his story of the closing moments in a public house. He seemed to speak with great knowledge.

§ Sir F. Soskice
In justification for what I said, may I say that I was speaking, I will not say on instructions as I sometimes say in other circumstances, but as the result of information purveyed to me.

§ Mr. Thomas
The vicarious expression of my right hon. and learned Friend obviously met with a great deal of understanding.
Everyone wishes to be reasonable over the question of closing hours. We do not want people guzzling their drinks before they leave the licensed premises. That would be neither in their interests nor in the public interest. I think that we are at one on this question. But, for the life of me, I cannot understand why it is necessary to tack extra time on to the licensed hours so as to make sure that there is drinking-up time. Why does 1005 not the drinking-up time start a quarter of an hour before closing time? That is logical. This is just another 10-minute extension. It is an open invitation to the kind of people referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend to order extra drinks, believing that they have 10 minutes more in which to drink them.
The Minister could meet his purpose and the purpose of us all, which is to stop people behaving in a less worthy way than they ought by rushing with their drinks in the last few minutes—and he could meet my view and the view of people who think like me—by saying that from a quarter past ten, if closing time is 10.30 p.m., no more drinks will be served. There would be no hardship about that. I consider that a quarter-of-an-hour is a reasonable time so long as it is before closing time. If it is after closing time I should come much nearer to "zero". But I consider that this proposal is a backdoor way of adding ten minutes to the licensed hours for drinking.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
Surely it is shortening the time.

§ Mr. Thomas
If my hon. Friend wishes to get up to speak, he has two legs on which to stand.
I hope that the Minister will listen to the appeal of my right hon. and learned Friend, if he will not listen to me. Last night we found the Minister amenable about this hour, when he started to make concessions to the wrong people. Tonight, I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will realise that there is a lot of good will towards him, and to those who wish to prevent hasty drinking which may lead to drunkenness and to trouble for other people, because we should remember that often cars which belong to customers are parked outside the public houses.
The Minister ought to consider that he has been fair enough to those who support the licensed trade and has extended the facilities for them by this Measure on a tremendous scale. At least he could say to them, "You are going so much from this Measure that I have decided that the last quarter of an hour of drinking time shall be used for the reasonable clearing up of drinks which have been ordered". I hope that the Minister will look again at this question. He 1006 certainly does not need to increase the burden of those who have to stay in the public house to clear up, and to struggle to get the customers out. He will make their lot harder rather than easier by this proposal.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
I do not wish to delay the House. I have taken no part in the debate so far, but it seems to me that so much and so many of the debates on the Amendments to the Bill have been almost metaphysical discussions on matters of very little material importance. I should have thought that what the Minister is proposing is eminently reasonable and ought to be accepted. It does no more than legalise the existing hours.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) and I agree on most things, but I differ from him on this occasion, because when he says that the proposal amounts to extending the drinking hours by 10 minutes he has his arguments exactly the wrong way round.
If he had his way, as he explained in his speech, my hon. Friend would be shortening the drinking hours by the last quarter-of-an-hour. He would take away from the existing law the right to order a drink in the last 15 minutes. The law states that the statutory closing time is up to a fixed time and, according to the arguments of my hon. Friend, in the last 15 minutes of that time no one would be able to order a fresh drink.
I understand his purpose and I can also understand, from his point of view, why he considers that to be a reasonable proposal. But I must inform my hon. Friend that his proposal is standing logic and language on its head to say that those who do not agree with him are lengthening the drinking hours when, from his arguments, he wants to shorten them.

§ Mr. G. Thomas
My hon. Friend has persuaded me. I quite agree that I want to shorten the hours and that he wants to lengthen them. That is the only difference between us.

§ Mr. Silverman
My hon. Friend is mistaken. I am glad that I have persuaded him to agree that it was not right to say that his proposal was anything but a shortening of the permitted hours.
1007 My hon. Friend now agrees with me on this issue. It is not true to say that the difference between us is that whereas he thought before that we were not shortening the closing time—and he admits now that it was—the Government's proposal is to give a legal sanction to what has always been the practice and what, in practice, must be the actual practice.
It would appear that the only question outstanding is whether a man should be compelled to order his drink in a shorter time or a longer time. I should have thought that the longer time he took the better. The public interest is to see that no more drink is served after the permitted hours. That is all that is involved and we are all agreed that no drinks should be ordered once the statutory limit of time has been reached. How long it takes for a man to finish the drink which he has ordered during the permitted hours is surely of no interest.

§ Mr. Vosper
I beg to move, in page 14, line 33, to leave out from "hour" to "prohibit" in line 34 and to insert: after the end of any such period". This Amendment meets a small drafting point to clarify the law.