Home rule for licensing

For some time now the Department for Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) has played second fiddle to the Home Office when it comes to licensing.

Now it is left with just the fiddle after the Government announcement that alcohol licensing is to move back to its "spiritual home", as one civil servant once described it.

The jolly old DCMS is to carry on with the entertainment bit, and presumably the rather tricky job of squaring the circle on small-scale live music, with a House of Lords bill to contend with and still no clear indication as to how far the exemption can be allowed to go. From its track record of indecisiveness on licensing matters — of which we have had much evidence recently — it may still be wrestling with the problem well after the Olympics have come and gone.

The Home Office will undoubtedly want to reassert its authority over alcohol retailing at an early stage, but it is already known that Home Secretary Theresa May is shortly embarking on a review of the Licensing Act, and I would surmise that the blueprint for licensing change is already on someone's desk.

After all, the so-called "consultation" on mandatory conditions evoked a good deal of negative views on the idea, but they still went right ahead and did it anyway. Not a peep out of the DCMS, but the ludicrous sight of not one, but two sets of guidance on the same conditions which are applicable to all licences — however law-abiding the licence-holders might be.

Licensing Act​

There is something of a marriage of convenience about the Licensing Act itself. The whole idea was to bring alcohol and entertainment together, with similar permissions and controls. The fact that two ministries are handling the same piece of legislation chimes in one sense with the Coalition (hard right-wing Home Office with liberal -tendency DCMS, perhaps?) but it does not make for joined-up thinking.

One assumes Theresa May will take over writing the statutory Guidance (and presumably the foreword) for the next edition, which may well be out later in the year. The likelihood is that any amendments to the 2003 Act will concern exclusively the retailing of alcohol and that any consideration of amending the entertainment sections, which are fairly sparse as it is and are mainly concentrated in Schedule 1, will be left to the DCMS at a later date.

Home Office​

Unfortunately, there were some good administrative changes proposed, which were cut off in their prime by the election and have not so far been revived. One of these was the extension of the period for an application for an interim authority from seven to 28 days, which more or less everyone approved, especially in the case of sudden death, or the collapse of a company. This is a regulatory reform which could have been activated fairly soon after the new ­Government took over, but is now presumably waiting for the larger block of changes to be made by the Home Office.

Amid all the gloom of the expectation that May will try to place even stronger controls on retailers, it should also be remembered that the Home Office is a stronger ministry than the DCMS and is a better bet for licensing administration. It will not be so swayed by consultations or side-issues. After all, it masterminded the new licensing legislation anyway, only losing it at the last minute. There will be some civil servants who will be only too glad to return to Queen Anne's Gate and look at the nuts and bolts of the Act.

But we are likely to see more headlines about the end of "24-hour drinking" before then.