A year of change ahead

So it may be with the legal changes which are due to take place next year. Licensing appears due for a major shake-up, both in terms of the responsibilities of local government and potentially the scope of the Licensing Act in terms of entertainment.

Taken together, these represent as large a change in emphasis as the original move from the old 1964 Act to the new regime.

One recurring issue over the past six years or so of the revised licensing law has been an uncertainty about how local authorities are going to react — it has been difficult to judge whether they will impose extra conditions or let a change go through on the nod.

There has been little in the way of consistency throughout the country because, although there is statutory Guidance, there are also individual councillors with their own ideas who do not necessarily follow set patterns of behaviour.

This was the major criticism of the Government’s view that licensing in the hands of local councils would be more, not less, consistent than under the justices.

Now, that ideology has been changed: it is right, says the Government, that local issues such as licensing should be dealt with according to local conditions, so there are bound to be discrepancies between the attitudes taken in two contrasting places.

To that end, it has strengthened the role of councils in controlling the licensing system, allowing them, essentially, to call in any premises for review if they think there is a need, and to impose conditions on the licence that they think might be appropriate.

To do this they will not be required to show that the conditions are really necessary, or that there is any evidence that without them the situation would be worse.

So it could be that they contrive conditions which are preventive, even though there has been no evidence of difficulty or trouble.
This, of course, gives them tremendous power, if they choose to use it. Out of the blue they can decide to call in a licence and slap on extra conditions, because they have had a report that the city centre is buzzing with young people late at night.

There appears nothing to prevent a global assault on the licensed trade, even though the general principle is that conditions must be relevant to the licensing objectives and relate to those particular premises. It will be more difficult for lawyers to argue against such imposition in the new legal climate.

The entertainment changes which I have been writing about recently will certainly have an impact on the licensed trade if they go through, but in some areas there will still be a hard fight to be free of conditions.

The emphasis may switch from licensing to other enforcement legislation as a result, but I do not think the trade will break free of local authority restraints in the way some envisage under the proposals.

None of this is likely to take effect until well into the second half of next year, however. Meanwhile, the trade continues to face sometimes overwhelming economic difficulties, to which licensing concerns may seem of secondary importance.

Whatever the outcome, I think we will be looking at a very different trade a year from now.