Gov't nonsense must be ruthlessly exposed
When I was first elected as a Labour MP in 1997, little did I think that during my time in Parliament we would see the nationalisation of the NatWest bank!
Many in the pub trade might argue that had ministers and civil servants in recent years shown the same inclination for regulating the City of London as they have for licensed premises, then the credit crunch may have been somewhat less severe.
This week they might also question whether now is the best time to be considering imposing a 26-page statutory code of practice on the trade.
The industry finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Having torn up the voluntary code of practice because of fear of infringing competition law, it now feels it could be made subject to a statutory code of conduct that might demonstrate the worst features of the nanny state. My advice would be to develop a cool and rational critique of the proposals.
It is sometimes easy to forget that well-planned industry lobbying can deliver results. For example, within the last two weeks the long debate over drink-driving limits has been put to bed, with the Government stating there will be no further proposals for change in the foreseeable future.
Rather than 26 pages of waffle the Government should be encouraged to put down on one side of paper the practices that it considers should be banned to combat binge drinking. These could be simply added to national licensing guidelines and licensing conditions for individual premises under existing legislation.
There would be widespread support for outlawing irresponsible promotions such as free drinks for women and entry fees that are linked with unlimited amounts of drinks. On the other hand the nonsense contained within some of the Government's draft suggestions must be ruthlessly exposed.
For example, one clause declares that "under no circumstances must drink be provided in such a way that the amount of alcohol cannot be measured by both serving staff and customer". In other words pouring wine from a bottle into a glass in a restaurant would be banned!
Equally would it really add to the sum of human happiness if every licensed business has to meet with the police and licensing authorities twice a year as the draft code suggests? That's 400,000 meetings a year.
The big flaw in the draft code is, of course, its concentration on the on-trade rather than the off-trade (there are 11 suggested rules are specific to the on-trade and only one specific to the off-trade). Until ministers find the courage to tackle supermarket pricing and promotions, any code they produce will not be treated seriously.
John Grogan is the Labour MP for Selby
