Legal advice: All change for Licensing Bill

Debates throw up new developments to affect pubs.

by David Clifton of thePublican.com's legal team of experts from London solicitors Joelson Wilson.​

Further developments in the House of Lords debate on the Licensing Bill on June 19 and in the House of Commons debate on June 24 included the following:

• In a complete about-turn, the government now proposes that children under 16, unaccompanied by an adult (18 or over), are not to be allowed in premises "exclusively or primarily used for the supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises".

That definition clearly includes pubs and is no doubt intended to include nightclubs too.

Whether intended or not, the amendment passed by the Lords introduces a more restrictive regime than the current law prohibiting under 14-year-olds from being in bars of pubs unless there is a children's certificate in force.

The government was defeated yet again on the issue of live music in small venues. By a vote of 128 to 113, the Lords exempted live music from the definition of "regulated entertainment" provided to an audience of fewer than 200 where the entertainment finishes before 11.30pm.

However, the government has now successfully passed a compromise amendment in the Commons which imposes a slightly less rigorous regime on pubs and bars with a permitted capacity of not more than 200. It will still require the provision of regulated entertainment as a licensable activity on the premises licence.

The government did not resist an opposition amendment designed to ensure that the new law provides for a register of business interests. An amendment has now been passed in the Commons which gives to freeholders, long leaseholders, mortgagees and occupiers of licensed premises a right to be notified of licensing matters - something that some sectors of the industry have been pushing for very hard.

And what about the all-important statutory guidance? Latest indications are that the next (and hopefully rather more detailed) draft will be published shortly. Who knows? It might even be in the public domain by the time you are reading this.

What should be of concern to the industry, or at least that part of the industry with pubs in town and city centre locations, is that the guidance will allow individual licensing authorities to formulate licensing policies which include a presumption against the grant of any more licences of a particular type - as is the case with entertainment licensing in Westminster currently.

Why do I say this? Because that is what Tessa Jowell said in the Commons on June 16 and what the government has said in answer to the Deputy Prime Minister's committee's report on the Licensing Bill and the evening economy. More on that next week.