Licensing Applications

News: Mixed bag of recommendations from House of Commons Select Committee

  • Date: 09/06/2009
  • Author/Solicitor: Andy Grimsey

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee recently published the results of its inquiry into the Licensing Act. This Report was itself in response to the Government's own Evaluation of March 2008, which painted a 'mixed picture'. The Select Committee took evidence from a wide range of parties, including police, councils, trade bodies and community groups. Jeremy Allen, our Senior Partner, gave evidence to the Committee in November last year.

Here are some of the more interesting recommendations (my comments in brackets):

• That the Government should amend the licensing forms to make them more user friendly and reduce the level of error.

• The Government should also remind local authorities that licensing applications containing minor factual errors should be amended not rejected.

• Local authorities should make it clear that a comment on a licensing application can be in its support as well as an objection, and ensure that all those with an interest in the application, not just local residents, are able to comment on it. (there was a lot of evidence of 'How to object' on councils' websites, but little on 'How to support').

• A national database of personal licence holders should be created to prevent abuse of the system.

• That the period of days following the death of a licence holder during which action can be taken to protect the licence be extended from 7 to 21 (but no mention of increasing this for insolvent licence holders, which in our experience actually causes more problems).

• There should be an increase in the number of TENs that can be applied for and that, in addition to the police, councillors, as elected representatives of the public, should be able to object to a TEN, and that the period for such objections should be three working days to allow both the police and councillors time to consider adequately whether they wish to object (can you imagine that?! TENs work well at present, but to involve local councillors would add unnecessary levels of bureaucracy and complexity, and undermine the whole concept). Also, there seems no reason why the minimum number of days' notice cannot be reduced in the event of an early agreement to the TEN by the Police.

• The banning of all drinks promotions seems disproportionate, and if competition law is the bar to trade associations giving its members guidelines, then the Government should change the competition legislation accordingly.

• Government should exempt venues with a capacity of 200 persons or fewer from the need to obtain a licence for the performance of live music.

• The reintroduction of the "two-in-a-bar" exemption enabling venues of any size to put on a performance of non-amplified music by one or two musicians without the need for a licence.

• The Metropolitan Police's Form 696 is unreasonable and should be scrapped.

In summary, therefore, a mixed bag of recommendations, many of which are broadly to be welcomed. Whether the Government acts on them is another matter - it seems to have a lot on its mind at the moment…..

For more information please contact Andrew Grimsey .