Back it or lose out, says Cunningham
The pub industry should support the forthcoming licensing bill or risk opponents imposing more regulation on the trade as the bill goes through Parliament, the civil servant in charge of drafting the bill, Andrew Cunningham, has said. "It's up to you to support the bill there won't be another chance for reform for 40 years," he told licensees attending a BII joint regional event in Cheltenham. He warned that those people with "Victorian attitudes who come in and see ministers and the prime minister" would seek to exploit division within the trade if it could not unite behind reform. He said: "Do not look a gift horse in the mouth. If you don't get off the fence and support it (the bill), then there are people who will try to impose more restrictions on the trade as it goes through Parliament." Cunningham also claimed the bill, which has 200 clauses and nine schedules, would "sweep away more red tape than any other bill in history" 33 separate statutes that apply to the pub industry will disappear. He also claimed that 95% of pubs that make premises licence applications would not have to face any kind of local authority hearing. And he was dismissive of opposition to the bill from licensees, claiming that a mere 2% had responded to industry surveys such as the MA's poll of 1,000 licensees. Cunningham hinted it was "likely" that "superpubs" would have a capacity limit applied to them. Mark Hastings, spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association, said: "That's something that's always been the case. With those pubs that are more like nightclubs, capacity may have to be addressed but it's not an issue for the vast majority of pubs.
