LICENSING PLANNING (TEM PORARY PROVISIONS) BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 4 April 1946)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD JOWITT)
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a short Bill, and I believe I may say an entirely uncontroversial Bill. Its object is to provide a little additional elasticity in the arrangements laid down in the Licensing Planning (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1945 for the constitution of licensing planning areas and licensing planning committees. Your Lordships will remember that last year's Act was founded on the Report of a Committee presided over 582 by Mr. Morris, K.C., now Mr. Justice Morris. The object was to provide means whereby licensing justices and local planning authorities could collaborate in securing the redistribution of licensed premises in connexion with the development of war-damaged areas. Section 1 of the Act empowered the Secretary of State, after consultation with the licensing justices and the local planning authority, to make orders declaring such an area to be a licensing planning area. Section 2 provided that a licensing planning area should then be set up, consisting of a chairman appointed by the Secretary of State and of representatives in equal numbers of the licensing justices and the local planning authorities. The committee was required, after consultation and negotiation with all the authorities concerned, to prepare a plan and to formulate proposals for the redistribution or surrender of licences in their area, and to submit these proposals for confirmation to the Minister of Town and Country Planning.
This is a very good illustration of preparing plans and finding out when you come to work them where they do not quite fit. We have set up seventeen licensing planning areas, and from most of them no suggestion has come that the machinery of the Act is not working smoothly. But in a few areas difficulties have already arisen which cannot be overcome without amending legislation. The first of these difficulties arises from the fact that under Section 1 of the 1945 Act, the original licensing planning area must consist of one or more contiguous licensing districts. In general, a licensing district consists of one or more contiguous and complete local government areas, and in such circumstances no difficulty has arisen, but there are districts where this is not the case. I am sorry always to draw my illustrations from the County of Kent, but here is an illustration. Take, for instance, the Borough of Dover. Now Dover should plainly be a licensing planning area, but owing to a provision which is tucked away in Section 2, subsection (5) of the Licensing (Consolidation) Act, 1910, the Dover licensing district includes, the liberties of Dover as one of the Cinque Ports—I believe, it includes, for instance, Broadstairs. This means that as the law stands a Dover licensing planning area must include two areas detached from the borough, and the Dover 583 committee must therefore include representatives of three local planning authorities who are in no way concerned with Dover itself.
Again, it is desired to declare a licensing planning area at Penge. The Penge licensing district includes half the Borough of Beckenham and the other half is in the widespread Bromley licensing district where four other local planning authorities besides the Beckenham Town Council have jurisdiction in one part of the district or another. As the law stands, all these authorities would have to be represented on the proposed committee. For working purposes, of course, it is important to have reasonably compact committees, and remembering that for each representative on a planning committee there must also be a representative of the licensing justices, it is clear that in both these cases the committee will be needlessly and unduly enlarged, unless the requirement that a licensing planning area must consist of whole licensing districts is relaxed. Accordingly, Clause 1 of the Bill provides that where a county district forms part only of a licensing district (as at Dover) or includes parts of more than one licensing district (as at Beckenham) the county district may be taken as a unit in declaring a licensing planning area. The term "county district" of course, includes a borough or an urban or rural district.
Clause 2 deals with a difficulty which has arisen in connexion with "overspill" areas. Section 3 of the 1945 Act empowered the licensing planning committees to apply to the Secretary of State for orders adding to their area licensing districts, to which there has been or is likely to be a substantial transfer of population so that the committee could secure the transfer to the "overspill" area of licences needed there which are no longer needed in the original area. Here again, the section treats the whole licensing district as a unit, and, in the absence of ground to the contrary, this would be the natural course. But a good deal depends on the question whether the "overspill" is widely spread over the district or is mainly concentrated in a small part of it (as, for example, in a new housing estate) and also on the extent and number of the districts involved. No order adding an "overspill" area has yet been made, but the matter has been 584 considered by several committees, and they are dismayed at the extent of the areas which must, as the law stands, be added to their original area, if they are to deal with "overspill" housing estates.
This difficulty has been chiefly felt by the County of London Committee, which already has, as your Lordships will realize, a very heavy and urgent task in London itself, and ought to deal with numerous housing estates outside the county. The committee would be seriously overburdened if it had to deal with the whole of the licensing districts in which those housing estates are contained. But the difficulty is not confined to London. At Sheffield an exceptionally large licensing district would have to be added in order to cover one corporation housing estate, and at Portsmouth two large licensing districts would have to be added in order to cover a single housing estate lying on the border between the two districts. Consequently, Clause 2 of the Bill empowers the Secretary of State to make orders for the addition to licensing planning areas or "overspill" areas consisting of parts of licensing districts. Incidentally, that will make provision for meeting a position which may arise if two licensing planning areas, for instance, London and West Ham, or Portsmouth and Southampton, "overspill" into the same licensing district and both committees ask for the addition of the district to their area.
Clause 3 contains further provisions for committees and sub-committees. Section 10 of the Act of 1945, which made special provision for the County of London, empowered the Secretary of State to provide by order for sub-committees to consider such matters as might be specified in the order. This was done primarily in order to provide for local sub-committees to include representatives of the Metropolitan Borough Councils which are not planning authorities and are not, therefore, represented on the main committee. In the provinces, the county district councils are planning authorities and are entitled as such to representation on licensing planning committees. It was not, therefore, thought necessary to make provision for sub-committees outside London. When, however, the order setting up the London sub-committees came to be made it was found advisable to entrust to them certain duties with regard to applications 585 for new licences and temporary removals which might equally well be entrusted to sub-committees elsewhere. The Home Secretary was advised, however, that this could not properly be done without statutory authority for setting up sub-committees outside London. Clause 3 (1) of the Bill therefore provides that orders constituting licensing planning areas outside the County of London or adding "overspill" areas to them may include provision for sub-committees to consider such matters as may be specified in the order. I need hardly say that any such order, of course, would be made only after the fullest consultation with the licensing justices and the planning authorities concerned.
Clause 3 (2) deals with a difficulty which has been foreseen where orders are likely to be made adding a number of "overspill" areas to the original area. Such orders would provide for the addition to the committee of equal numbers of representatives of the licensing justices and planning authorities concerned with the "overspill" area. A joint planning committee is often concerned as well as the district council, in which case the minimum number of additional representatives is four. Where, therefore, a number of areas is added, the committee would become unwieldy if all the members were to concern themselves with all parts of the area, and the original members might actually be outnumbered. Clause 3 (2), therefore, provides that the voting rights of the additional representatives may be limited to matters relating to the "overspill" area with which they are concerned. This limitation is confined to voting in the main committee. If a subcommittee is set up for an "overspill" area, the representatives of that area will have full rights as members of the sub-committee, and will also be able as members of the main committee to vote on all points arising when the report of the sub-committee is considered by the main committee.
Clause 3 (3) provides merely for the variation and revocation of orders under Clause 3 (1) and (2). Clause 3 (4) provides that in London, as elsewhere, the representatives of "overspill" areas may be members of the main committee as well as being members of sub-committees, and it applies to them the power to limit their voting rights in the main committee to matters relating to the "overspill" area 586 with which they are concerned. Clause 3 (5) empowers planning committees to pay secretaries of sub-committees subject to the same conditions as are laid down in the Act of 1945 for the payment of secretaries of main committees. Under Section 2 (8) of the Act of 1945 these expenses will be defrayed by the local planning authorities concerned, which will, of course, be represented on the licensing planning committees.
So your Lordships will see, with that explanation of what I agree is a highly technical matter, that the Bill makes no fundamental changes in the scheme approved by Parliament last year, but that it does do something to meet, in a reasonable way, a number of difficulties which have been revealed by experience already gained in the deliberations of these committees. The Bill contains no proposal which would alter the functions of the licensing planning committees, but it does provide means whereby, in some areas, the burden of work falling on the committees can be lightened materially, the membership of the committees can be kept within reasonable and manageable limits, and, in general, the use of the sub-committees is encouraged. The Bill contains no mandatory provisions on any of these points, but it adds to the alternatives available for adoption in the orders to be made under the Act of 1945, and thus makes it possible for these orders—orders which are only made after full consultation with the licensing justices and planning authorities concerned—to be adjusted more closely to local needs. The task of the licensing planning committees is by no means an easy one, and their work should make a valuable contribution to the planned redevelopment of our damaged areas. It is vitally important that this redevelopment should go forward as a whole with all possible speed, and the present Bill is commended as a small but, I hope, useful contribution towards that end. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
My Lords, I think we should all feel obliged to the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack for the explanation he has given in regard to this Bill. I, for one, have 587 no objection whatever to taking illustrations from Kent. I happen to be—although my name belies it—a Kentish man by birth. The difference, I believe, between the Lord Chancellor and myself is that he is a Man of Kent by residence. This Bill seeks to make necessary procedure for dealing with the case of a public-house which was damaged by enemy action and other circumstances of that kind more flexible than it was under the measure which was passed through Parliament a year ago. Anything more flexible in that procedure should I think be very welcome. This is one of the few Bills we have had before us which, as I understand it, has originated in this House. It will, naturally, be our duty, therefore, to look through it carefully and diligently in the remaining stages which lie ahead of us before we send it to another place, for I am quite certain that on all sides of this House it would be the wish of your Lordships that we should send forward the measure in as perfect a condition as we can possibly make it. Certainly we propose to give the Bill an unopposed Second Reading in this House to-day.

§ LORD JESSEL
My Lords, the noble Lord who has just spoken has put our point of view so very well that I need hardly dilate upon it. I was much impressed by one part of the speech of the noble and learned Lord Chancellor in which he gave us such a very able and clear explanation of this technical Bill. He said that planning sometimes requires to be revised, or words to that effect. It is common knowledge that, with the best intentions in the world, planners do make mistakes. They start off almost always by thinking that their ideas are right and that those of everybody else are wrong, and then, sometimes, they fall into error.
Another point in the Lord Chancellor's speech that especially interested me was his reference to Kent. Kent, in my opinion, is the finest county in this country. My family come from that county, and when the noble and learned Lord spoke about Dover I thought to myself "that is getting near home," because my father represented Dover from 1868 to 1873. I was, therefore, very glad that the noble and learned Lord brought in Kent as an illustration to explain to us 588 what was going on. As regards "over-spill" areas your Lordships will remember that the noble and learned Lord Chancellor remarked that a great deal of the "overspill" occurs in the vicinity of London. That is very natural because London is surrounded by very populous neighbours, and, undoubtedly, there is a great deal of difficulty over a lot of these matters. I am very glad to see that this Bill, though not a measure of vital importance, will do much to relieve these committees of a great deal of trouble and to make their work a great deal easier.
The Lord Chancellor referred to the demand of the Metropolitan Borough Councils to have representation. That demand was satisfied. They were asked to give evidence and go before the committees when they had any points to make. On the whole, therefore, I think we ought to be very content with this Bill. It is a Bill designed to remedy certain defects in the machinery which have come to light in the course of experience. Therefore I have no doubt that your Lordships will agree to the Second Reading and send it down to another place without very much more argument.

VISCOUNT MERSEY
My Lords, I think perhaps something ought to be said from these Benches also in support of the Bill. I have been a licensing justice for more years than I care to remember, and even a member of the county licensing committee and I was—I will not say astonished, because I found what I expected when I heard the Lord Chancellor's exposition. He has apparently learnt in a very short time more than I have learnt in all those years. I am sure this Bill is flexible and will help on a difficult, complicated and rather contentious planning system which will benefit both the licensed premises and the consumers.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I am very grateful to your Lordships for the way in which this Bill has been received. I do not claim for one moment to know half as much as the noble Viscount who has just spoken on this matter has suggested, but I would like to say this. If any of your Lordships have any difficulties about this Bill I would be grateful if you would come and discuss 589 them with me and I shall be able to understand what they are.