Secretary of State's nine lives
The contents of the new Policing and Crime Bill were made public soon after the last edition of the Morning Advertiser went to press in 2008. So this is the first opportunity for me to comment on the new measures that will affect the licensed trade.
As predicted, the Bill makes major changes to the Licensing Act 2003 in a number of ways. It gives the Secretary of State power to impose additional mandatory conditions on all premises licences and club premises certificates. These fresh conditions will even prevail over existing conditions if they are "more onerous" — stricter — than the existing ones. They will also apply to all new licences of the prescribed category, meaning that there may be circumstances in which conditions will be applied to off-licences rather than on-licences and vice versa.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the proposed schedule that introduces this power is that the maximum number of conditions which may be stipulated by the Department is nine. Where this figure comes from is anybody's guess, but it is sure to be debated in both Houses when the Bill makes its parliamentary progress. The conditions will be laid out in secondary legislation that will also include the date from which they are to take effect.
Perhaps of more concern is the proposed new power for local authorities themselves to set new conditions for licensed premises. This represents a major shift in emphasis in the legislation and must be seen as a victory for local government lobbying. Up until now, an authority could only act on the application of another "responsible authority". It had no power to refuse a licence of its own accord, or to impose conditions unless representations had been made.
Under the new Bill, local authorities will have a set of "permitted conditions" for licensed premises, presumably listed and authorised by the Department for Culture
Media & Sport (DCMS), in consultation with the Home Office, and a new set of guidelines issued under section 182 of the Licensing Act. There appears to be nothing in the new draft Bill to prevent them taking action directly, although they must consider such action if they receive representations by one or more of the responsible authorities. But they do not have to wait for a police request, for example, if they want to start the procedure.
This is quite a new concept and could effectively mean entirely different conditions applying to licences in adjoining local authority areas. The conditions are imposed where the authority feels that there has been nuisance, annoyance or disturbance to the public, or disorder as a result of the supply or consumption of alcohol in a particular area. This probably means that the permitted conditions will be applied selectively to establishments in a specified area, rather than as blanket conditions applying to all premises in the borough.
The Bill makes similar or identical provision for clubs operating under a club premises certificate, with the obvious proviso that the authority can be selective in which type of premises it decides to impose conditions on.
As with much of this type of proposed legislation, there are a number of basic questions to be answered, which the current guidance notes on the Bill do not fully address. There is no doubt that MPs and members of the House of Lords will want to see the scope of the proposed con-ditions that may be permitted, but if the previous published and leaked set of conditions are anything to go by, these will be far-ranging and involve methods of sale, the keeping of records and more training of
staff. There will be plenty of time to analyse and debate these as the new Bill makes its progress through Parliament.
