Trojan Horse of reform reveals its true nature

This is set to be the most crucial year for licensing in the modern generation, yet it begins with so many uncertainties. These have been stimulated further by the comments of Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Com-missioner, who at this very late stage has strongly expressed the view that extending drinking hours will fuel binge drinking and cause problems of policing, taking officers away from other duties.

Given that other senior figures have also published their reservations over the Christmas period, one can sense that there is a campaign to persuade the Government to think again about the central plank of licensing reform ­ flexibility of hours.

If anything happens to that flexibility, the last perceivable benefit of licensing reform from the trade's point of view goes out of the window. The whole package can then be seen as the Trojan Horse that some of us recognised all the way back in 2001.

For those of you not well versed in the classics, the licensing reform proposals were initially trailed as a marvellous gift for the leisure industry, freeing it from red tape and heralding a new dawn of flexible hours and less interference. It was praised by all the leading trade bodies (and in case they demur on this point, I have kept the cuttings!). But during the dark hours, a whole new anti-alcohol lobby emerged from its insides and proceeded to ensure that far from being a liberalising measure, it was destined to provide more control, more red tape, more interference and a possible cutting back of licensing opportunities.

What is slightly galling for me and other critics of these reforms is that we did predict the likely backlash from the Sir John Stevens of this world, and waited for it to happen during the debates in Parliament. But at the time the Licensing Bill was being debated, there was not the same concentration on binge drinking that has occurred in the last six months or so, and only the spokesmen for Westminster Council and one or two others made major criticisms on the flexibility issue.

What surprises me is Sir John's somewhat simplistic approach to a far more complex problem. On this page I have often highlighted the desire by many police forces to remove the two main "flashpoint" times in the evening when first the pubs and then the clubs all close together, disgorging hundreds of young people onto the streets at the same time.

I agree that if all the reforms did was to move those times to two fixed points later in the night, it would not help the police at all. The policing problem is one of sufficient manpower for these peak periods, not of a general problem of the night shift.

Flexibility is meant to remove fixed closing times and allow for a more gradual dispersal. It is failure to be convinced that this is achievable in England and Wales that could undermine the whole idea. So it may be that Sir John's advisers have concluded that the easiest sound-bite is the best: ask the Government to think again about the whole question of flexibility.

But what can they (the Government) do at this late stage? The Act is already on the statute book. The first local authority that tries to impose a set of fixed permitted hours on its local community will be taken to the High Court. Richard Caborn, the minister recognises this and defends the flexibility position robustly.

But there is a general election in the offing. What might be more important is what the cabinet collectively thinks about the political effects of binge drinking and its perception by the electorate. Some Trojan Horse!