Blunkett: media had a hand in licensing

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett came close to admitting last week that the early stages of drawing up the Licensing Act had been influenced by the mainstream media.

Blunkett was Home Secretary from 2001 to 2004, when the Licensing Act was being discussed between the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and the Home Office.

Speaking at The Publican Conference at London's QEII Conference Centre, Blunkett said: "There was a bulge in a particular age group, with a lot of younger people around, plus you had a fall in unemployment, greater affluence and more women going into pubs.

"Drinking basically became the centre of a media whirlpool."

Today's 24 hour media had "contributed to an awareness regarding the issues surrounding drink. The more public it becomes the more the media goes after it and that's when governments tend to jump," he said.

Blunkett acknowledged that when he and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell sat down with the licensed trade in 2004 to talk about the trade's requirements they "hadn't looked at the broader trends".

In a head-to-head interview with broadcaster and conference host James Naughtie, a relaxed-looking Blunkett said the best operators in the sector had handled the implications of the Act "extremely well".

But he added that he believed the pub trade had smartened up its act before the new regime had come into force. "We in government tend to change a law when things have already begun to improve. The industry had already started to squeeze out the vertical drinking dens."