Trade issues final call to arms over licensing shake-up

Trade figures have made a fresh call for licensees to contact their MP as part of a last-ditch industry-wide bid to avoid "horrendous" changes to the licensing laws.

The Home Office's consultation on the licensing overhaul has closed, but industry figures argue there is still time to stop the worst measures becoming law.

Speaking at the British Beer & Pub Association's Key Issues Forum today, the group's pub and leisure director Martin Rawlings said: "Somehow we've got to mobilise people. It's no good just having six responses from the trade, we need 50,000. It's a tall order, but we have to do more."

The licensing changes are expected to enter Parliament at the end of next month or early November as part of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill. Other elements of the Bill include a late-night levy on venues and giving health bodies a say in licensing decisions.

But Rawlings pointed out the licensing changes were only a small part of the Bill and would not be debated much.

He said it was "not too late" to write to the Home Office, arguing the proposals were "full of invective and supposition".

He also suggested there were many councils opposed to the changes, but the police were a "difficult one" to convince. "I don't see them as a natural ally," he said.

Jeremy Allen, of solicitors Poppleston Allen, echoed Rawling's calls. "People really need to get involved, it's not too late to write to your MP," he said, during the event at the National Brewery Centre, in Burton.

Allen warned there were areas of the government's plans that were "pretty frightening".

He pointed to the issue of a pub being forced to stay shut, during an appeal period. "That's horrendous, it's a really nasty proposal and I don't think it would stand up under European law," he said.

Allen also hit out at the prospect of police being able to go unchallenged in demanding a pub cut its hours.

Speaking from the audience, Robert Humphreys, secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, said the "dye was not yet cast" on the plans, but time was "incredibly short".

He also urged licensees to speak to their MPs, as a meeting was being organised at the House of Commons in which the minister responsible James Brokenshire would listen to the concerns before the Bill is tabled.

"We could have hundreds of MPs briefed to support the campaign objectives," he said. "But there're only four weeks to do it."