Licensing update: The jury's out

In the first of a quarterly series of articles on the new Licensing Act, Daniel Pearce discusses the first three months of the new regime with licensing minister James Purnell.Only a small number of the nation's pub-goers have made use of the extended hours in place at many pubs in England and Wales since last November. Licensing minister James Purnell was one of them, at a pub in Notting Hill in London. Last May, when the minister took on a role which some were already dubbing Mission Impossible, it looked like he might not get the chance.

Since then, Mr Purnell has piloted the Act not only through the demands of political opponents and some corners of the national press for it to be delayed, but also through the dark days when it seemed like none of the estimated 180,000 licensed venues in England and Wales would actually bother applying for a new licence - and now through the first three months of the legislation.

And we have seen the first signs that the tide of criticism is beginning to turn, with recent Home Office figures revealing that serious violent crime dropped by more than a fifth over the Christmas period. There is no Armageddon in the streets - and none of the wholesale closures predicted.

After just three months, however, Mr Purnell refuses to say whether he truly believes the Act is working in quelling disorder, still preferring to speak of theory rather than evidence.

"It's too early to tell whether the Act is working," he says. "We've said all the way through that we wouldn't judge it overnight but based on evidence - that it would take months and probably years to see the full impact. If there had been an upsurge of violence over Christmas then we would have said exactly the same thing!

"The hypothesis would be that greater enforcement powers combined with the trading hours has helped with disorder. Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester have made comments to that effect.

"Our argument was always that the 11pm closing time was not just being ineffectual in controlling responsible drinking, it was actually acting as a flashpoint as well. We have tried to remove that flashpoint, and it may well have happened, but we don't yet have the evidence to be able to say it."

Working together

What did happen over the festive period, believes the minister, was "a very good partnership between police, local authorities and the trade to try and bring in this approach to nipping problems in the bud", through measures such as temporary pub closures and fixed-penalty notices. "So you can arrest someone at 9pm for a minor offence, and stop them from stabbing someone at 1am in the morning," claims Mr Purnell.

"People have said for a long time that police don't have the right powers to deal with troublemakers, and the powers we put into the Act were designed to answer that."

The partnership, or "collective approach" as Mr Purnell calls it, has undoubtedly been more effective in some areas than in others.

Police in West Yorkshire, for example, appear to have been overstepping the mark by closing pubs without the personal licence-holder on site.

A number of pub companies responding to our special report this week were still frustrated with their local authorities' inability, to supply them with premises licences three months into the new regime.

Thanks to Punch Taverns, Leeds City Council, meanwhile, is facing a judicial review over its heavy-handed licensing policy.

While not exactly washing his hands of these issues, Mr Purnell says it is up to the police and the councils to deal with them.

"We devolved this power from Whitehall, so the necessary consequence of devolution is that you will have more variations and different police forces will decide to define the law in different ways," he says.

"The premises licences are a matter for the local authorities, we don't issue licences. By and large local authorities have been looking to work with the police and the trade and [local authorities co-ordinating body] LACORS has played an important role in terms of spreading best practice where people have misunderstood the guidance."

Mr Purnell points to the fact that fewer than one per cent of local authority decisions were appealed against as evidence that they did a good job during the application process.

Furthermore, the reviews of guidance and fees built into the new system should iron out some of the inconsistencies and problems, he contends.

"We've already had feedback from people in the trade over what changes they would like to see. Where there's immediate consensus we can act, otherwise we can take a few months to look at it."

Key issues that have come to light include the best way of advertising licence variations, and the need for one date for annual licence renewals. Underage salesThe opening three months has also seen a continued improvement in tackling underage sales from all sides of the licensed trade.

But one in three licensed premises (29 per cent) sold alcohol to underage children over the targeted festive crackdown, prompting inevitable headlines in the Daily Mail. Undoubtedly more can be done.

Mr Purnell cites the new guidelines agreed by trade associations from the on and off-trades in November as an example of how the trade is working with government to get to grips with the issue.

"We are now working with the industry on how we implement them. We want to see test purchase operations continue towards a world in which underage sales are eliminated," he says.

"It's part of trying to have this culture change around underage drinking, so that if people look under 21 or they look drunk they know they are not going to get served, and people in the industry know it's not just them who are going to be sticking their neck out."

As the pub industry continues to move forward and meet the challenges and, hopefully, reap some of the benefits of trading under the new regime, Mr Purnell says it is vital that pubs keep up the good work.

"There's been a huge amount of scrutiny on the trade. It is very important that we maintain the momentum we have built up over things like serving people who are underage. We are very pleased with what the trade has done in the run-up to the implementation of the Act, but we are really only just at the beginning."