I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for Sovereigns to be chosen by the House of Commons from among the immediate family of the preceding Sovereign; to provide that all Sovereigns so chosen shall cease to be Sovereign upon reaching the age of 75; to make consequential provision relating to Regencies, succession to the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, and the private estates of the Crown; and for connected purposes.

I am a strong supporter of the monarchy. I believe that as a nation we owe this institution and its present incumbent a debt of gratitude as well as our allegiance. It is because of the selflessness of many recent monarchs, exemplified by Her Majesty the Queen, and the curb on elected tyranny that the institution provides that this apparently anachronistic institution continues to receive such widespread support. But if the monarchy is to continue to be the popular apex of an otherwise democratic pluralist state, it is right to consider whether it would be beneficial if, while retaining its traditional role, it evolved to meet modern demands and expectations. The danger is that without such evolution, the continued existence of an hereditary unreformed apex in a modern state will be pilloried as incongruous, and will be used to promote republican views.

My proposals would enact three principles. The first is the end of succession based on male primogeniture. No account should be taken of either gender or order of birth in the determining of succession to the Crown, but this proposal would not affect the current heir. The second is the retirement of the sovereign at 75 years of age, although not in the case of our current monarch. Finally, public support for a successor should be demonstrated, possibly by Parliament sanctioning the choice of the heir from within the immediate children of the monarch, and members of the Commonwealth in which the sovereign remains the head of state should have the right to be consulted.

It is important to make it clear at the outset that nothing in the Bill should be construed as an attack on the current sovereign, the heir or the institution of the monarchy. The changes that I propose would not affect the status of Her Majesty the Queen, or the role of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales as her heir. Her Majesty has sworn the existing coronation oath, and Prince Charles has already been invested as her heir. It is only fair and proper that their position remain unchanged.

The laws determining succession to the throne have their historical origins in the 17th century and the struggle between two different conceptions of monarchy: divine right, and the view that the sovereign's title rests on a willingness to rule within the law and through Parliament. The Queen rules not by simple hereditary right, as did James II, but because of the agreement by William and Mary to accept the constitutional arrangements in the 1689 Bill of Rights, then strengthened by the Act of Settlement. These rules of succession are based on the concept of primogeniture: male heirs take precedence and the Crown is offered automatically to the eldest son. It is a tradition that was historically reinforced by the feudal belief that men were better able to defend property and to lead armies into battle. This assessment of the differences in the capabilities of men and women has since been rendered irrelevant, as the modern responsibilities of the monarch have not extended to fighting in battle since 1742, when George II fought in the battle of Dettingen.

A law of succession under which female and male heirs are considered equal has both historical and international precedence. Such precedence is found under the ancient Irish Brehon law and in the Iceni. In 1980, Sweden modernised its Act of Succession and moved to full cognatic primogeniture; a similar debate has since arisen in Spain. Her Majesty the Queen has proved that a woman is capable of fulfilling the modern leadership and advocacy roles of the British monarch as well as any man. Some of the finest English monarchs have been female, and some of the worst, male. We no longer live in need of a feudal monarchy, and the monarchy will be strengthened if it acknowledges that fact.

Secondly, I propose that the requirement placed upon the monarch to serve until death be removed and replaced by retirement at 75. In an age when people are living longer, and in which the monarch has fulfilled a lifetime of responsibility, service and duty, it seems sensible that they should have the right to a retirement away from the commitments of the Crown, and without thereby calling the institution of monarchy into question. This change is more likely to ensure a suitable and able monarch by virtue of age, and it would allow the heir to succeed to the Crown earlier, rather than waiting all their life in the wings. It is reasonable to expect that without such changes, an heir will only ascend to the throne having reached an age at which most of their contemporaries are already drawing their pensions.

My third proposal—that public support for a successor be demonstrated, perhaps by Parliament sanctioning choice of the heir from within the immediate children of the monarch—is the oldest idea of the three. It is witnessed in European history through the Elector of Hanover, and in Britain by the Act of Settlement of 1701, which states that it is for Parliament to decide the title to the throne. It is reinforced by the elective element at the coronation ceremony, for through the coronation oath, the sovereign acknowledges their duty to preserve the liberty of their subjects, while their representatives symbolically—and consequentially—pledge their allegiance to the sovereign.

My ideas go further than simply bringing the monarchy into line with the basic legal and societal values of equality; they move towards reflecting a value that is at the heart of our democratic society: choice. The populace could have an indirect input into choosing the monarch, and the potential monarch could choose whether to accept the responsibilities and duties of the position. For an unwilling monarch is more likely to be an unfit monarch, and not all offspring wish to follow in their parents' footsteps. In this respect, the royal family is probably no different from our own.

Historical precedents for these proposed changes exist alongside modern impetus, but inertia risks the monarchy being portrayed as increasingly remote and anachronistic. With that in mind, support for considering these ideas would, over time, allow change to be carried out calmly and with due consideration, rather than waiting until our hand is forced. For I want us to continue to have a sovereign—fit by the virtues of age, inclination, ability and history of service—whom we both need and from whom our nation will continue to benefit.

Well, I have heard a few things in my time, but my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Sayeed), who has performed such signal service as the chairman of the parliamentary choir, should stick to singing. Not only does he make a nicer noise and rather more sense then, but he generally reads from a better script. If I had had that text before me when I was a schoolmaster many years ago, I would have given it a gamma minus as a sixth-form essay and would not have allowed it to be discussed at great length. My hon. Friend has produced a most extraordinary tissue of ridiculous arguments. the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) reminds me in an interjection, his speech contained an extraordinary amount of ageist claptrap. The present sovereign is above the retirement age that he would prefer, which is also an oblique attack on my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell). We believe that people can serve extremely well way beyond the age of 75.[Interruption.] First, as my right hon. Friend

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire did a little historical research, but he did not investigate the Hanoverians much. His proposal would bring back the heir's party and the sovereign's party all over again. It would politicise the monarchy by making people in this House take sides for or against a particular potential heir.

The whole thing is absurd. In all my time in the House, I have never heard a less credible argument. I never thought that the day would come when a Conservative colleague—one who belongs to the constitutional party—would propose so much claptrap and nonsense to the House. This Bill should be seen off immediately.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and negatived.

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House calls for a delay in the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003 in the light of concerns expressed by doctors, senior police officers and members of the judiciary that the Act will lead to increased health and policing problems; is concerned about the increase in violent crimes since 1998, half of which are attributed to alcohol misuse; recognises that drunken revellers are turning town and city centres into no-go areas, thus putting an increasing burden on health and police resources, and predicts that the implementation of the Act will exacerbate these problems; is further concerned about increased alcohol consumption and believes that extended opening hours will have an adverse serious effect on health of the nation; and regrets that the Government has fundamentally failed to deal with the problem of binge drinking before proceeding with the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003.

I am conscious of a slight irony as I open this debate. After all, in recent times the Government have shown a distinct interest in telling us what to eat, what to do in our spare time and how to raise our children. In terms of sheer nannying, the Government have few equals. However, although there is genuine concern about this matter among experts, professionals and the general public, the Government are taking the exact opposite approach. I shall argue today that, by pressing ahead with 24-hour drinking, the Government are neglecting their responsibilities. Once again, they are displaying a perverse sense of priorities and an arrogant disregard for all contrary opinion.

Britain is now one of the worst countries in Europe for binge drinking. It begins with the young. Young people under 16 drink twice as much as they did a decade ago. A third of all British 15-year-olds say that they have been drunk at some time in their lives. That compares to just one in 10 in France and Italy. The British Medical Journal reports that more than 2,000 drunken children are admitted to hospital every year.

However, it is not just a young person's problem. Overall, Britons are drinking 12 per cent. more today than in 1997. One adult man in three now exceeds the recommended guidelines on alcohol consumption, and the figure for women is one in five. UK consumers spend more of their disposable income on alcohol than they do on personal goods and services, fuel and power, or tobacco.

Some might say that that is their choice, but the annual cost of crime and antisocial behaviour linked to alcohol misuse is estimated to be more than £7 billion. The cost of productivity lost as a result of alcohol misuse is estimated to be more than £6 billion. Every year, 17 million working days are lost because of alcohol-related absence.

The problem is about more than just money. First, there is the cost to our health. Liver disease is now an increasingly frequent cause of death. The incidence of liver cirrhosis is rising among 20 and 30-year-olds, and 70 per cent of all weekend night-time admissions to accident and emergency departments are linked to alcohol. That is a problem that our already overworked doctors and nurses could do without.

Secondly, there is the crime and disorder cost. Since 1998, violent crime has increased by 83 per cent. There are now over a million violent crimes each year, and the police say that alcohol is largely to blame for this increase. Every week in England and Wales, there are 23,000 incidents of alcohol-related violence and 360 drink-related sexual assaults. Around a third of all domestic violence is related to alcohol misuse.

Third, there is the cost to us all of binge drinking. The rise in binge drinking is having a disastrous effect on our towns and cities. The delicately termed night-time economy can mean a lifetime of misery for those unfortunate enough to live in the vicinity of late-opening pubs and clubs. Their sleep is disturbed. Their gardens get filled with litter, and worse. They fear to go out on to their own streets at night, and they cannot escape because the value of their houses is cut by 20 per cent. or more. Ask any family in a town or city centre up and down the country what is the biggest threat to their quality of life and it will not take them long to mention drunken louts hanging around the streets.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a minute, because he has a long and honourable record on the issue.

In those same towns and cities every weekend—and indeed on some week nights too—revellers pile out of pubs and bars so intoxicated that they are beyond coherent speech or reason. Young women are so inebriated that they are oblivious to how they are going to get home. Young men stagger around looking for fights. One serving policeman wrote to me last week and said:

"I don't want to work even more late and night shifts to cater for drunken idiots. Why should we put ourselves at risk to clear up the mess on the streets?"

Another police officer described 90 per cent. of his job on a Friday and Saturday night as falling under the "mopping up category".

The culture of excess and violence being allowed to develop was evocatively described by Judge Charles Harris when, sentencing some hooligans, he said:

"People, or people like you, are making the towns of England revolting and dangerous places at night . . . It is being assisted by legislation to make alcohol available at all times of day and night, which is OK for reasonable human beings, but you are of the attitude of trying to drink as much as you can for as long as you can. You became ugly urban savages by your behaviour, which resulted in serious violence".

Indeed, under this Government, things have got worse. And it should not be that way.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said in a memo to the Prime Minister, leaked to the Sunday Times recently:

"It is already an offence to sell alcohol to people who are drunk or to permit drunkenness or disorderly behaviour on licensed premises. We need to ask why the existing closure powers are so rarely used by the police".

Indeed we do. The previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), made it clear that drunkenness and disorderly behaviour was spiralling out of control. On that basis, convictions for drunk and disorderly behaviour should have grown rapidly. However, since this Government came to power, the number of people found guilty or cautioned for drunk and disorderly behaviour has fallen by 10,000—about 20 per cent. In that time, the number of minors convicted or cautioned for buying alcohol has fallen by 80 per cent. Under-age drinking has been virtually decriminalised under this Government, and only five pubs have had their licence revoked in recent years.

The Prime Minister recently said that the police would be given new powers to shut down problem pubs, but the powers that already exist have simply not been used.

I agree with virtually every word that the right hon. Gentleman has said. What I cannot understand is why his predecessor as shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), never said any of this when the Bill was introduced in 2003. Some of us who were concerned about those issues might have welcomed a little support from Tory Front Benchers.

I am coming to exactly that point now. Just before the 2001 general election, the Labour party texted voters saying:

"Cldnt give a XXXX 4 last ordrs? Vote Labour 4 xtra time".

That is the motive behind what we hear today. When the Licensing Bill was first introduced, the Conservative spokesman raised concerns about the potential for a decline

"in civilised behaviour on our streets as a result of flexible drinking hours".

She described it presciently as a "leap in the dark", a phrase that was used later by the previous Home Secretary when he expressed his fears about it. But it is undoubtedly true—as the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) pointed out—that people on both sides of the House largely accepted the Government's arguments that relaxation of the licensing laws would improve the situation, not make it worse. Hon. Members accepted those arguments on the basis of information provided by the Government.

There have been a number of allegations in the press about Government cover-ups and misleading information, and it is an extremely serious charge to allege that the Government have misled the House. If proven, it would normally require a Minister to resign. I do not know whether the Government's extremely partial stance was deliberate, the result of incoherence between Departments, or a matter of simple incompetence. My review of the Government's pronouncements during and since the proceedings on the Licensing Act 2003 have led me to believe that they have been literally economical with the truth. I listened very carefully to the explanation from the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

The right hon. Gentleman is making insinuations, but is it not the practice in Standing Committee debates—I was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Act—to table probing amendments? I recall amendments on, for example, whether we should start a clause with a conjunction. We had long debates about that, but I do not recall a single amendment from the Conservative party on flexible drinking hours.

If the hon. Gentleman listens to what I say next, he will understand why. We now discover that, before, during and for a short while after the Act went through its proceedings in Parliament, the Government led us to believe that the police were content with these proposals. We now discover that more than half of all police forces are deeply concerned by this Act. Steve Green, the chief constable of Nottinghamshire police and, incidentally, the spokesman from the Association of Chief Police Officers on alcohol-fuelled violence, warned that

"24 hour drinking under the current drinking culture . . . would make for a far greater violent crime problem".

Or as he put it on another occasion, it would make for "a 24 hour . . . hell".

In its assessment of the impact of the Licensing Act—it was not shown to the public or the Opposition—the Metropolitan police said that the Act would "fuel" Britain's drinking culture and

"increase the potential for victims of crime".

There was also no indication during the passage of the Act that the medical fraternity had concerns.

Does my right hon. Friend understand the police's concern at the effect that the measure will have on recruitment? If they see more and more of the job as policing the unruly people who have come out of the pubs late and the antisocial behaviour that is fuelled by alcohol, it will become more and more difficult to recruit people into the police in the first place.

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The measure will affect many aspects of policing. It will draw the police away from the other crimes that they should be dealing with. As he said, they will become demoralised as they have to deal with rather unpleasant tasks.

I take it from the right hon. Gentleman's remarks that he is telling the House that today's debate is the result of the Conservative party's abject failure as an effective Opposition.

The hon. Gentleman should read a little more. If he reads John Maynard Keynes, he will find that Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?" That is clearly what the hon. Gentleman does not do. He simply has a prejudice that he starts and ends with.

Is not the question that Ministers should answer whether, overall, society would benefit from 24-hour boozing? We now know that much more information was given to the Government at the time and that it was not released to the rest of us. There is now even further information and each of the bits of information, apart from that from the drinks industry, suggests that 24-hour drinking would be very bad for Britain.

My hon. Friend makes an apposite point. As I was about to say, there was no indication during the passage of the Act that the medical fraternity had concerns. When the Government published their alcohol harm reduction strategy paper, the report highlighted the adverse impacts of binge drinking on the nation's health, and on levels of antisocial behaviour. However, evidence has now come to light that the Government withheld several criticisms of their policy on licensing. The Sunday Times has reported that the paper was redrafted to remove evidence of a link between drink and 19,000 sex assaults a year and the "adverse" effect 24-hour opening might have on local residents.

Many experts consulted by the Government concluded that the increased alcohol consumption resulting from liberalisation of licensing laws would have a severe negative impact. These concerns were included in a draft of the report that was circulated to the Cabinet in August 2003. However, they had been removed from the report by the time an interim report was published in September. One of the report's expert contributors, Professor Griffith Edwards, said at the time:

"I have seldom seen a consensus of informed scientific advice so trashed and ignored".

According to Professor Colin Drummond, professor of addictive psychiatry at St. George's hospital medical school:

"One of the striking things was that when the final report was published there were a great number of things that really just didn't appear there at all. I think it's extremely important and certainly the academics and the Royal Colleges that commented on the Strategy are very concerned that these things had been left out."

Professor Drummond also said:

"I think it's an example of sexing down a dossier on alcohol problems really . . . evidence that was clearly available to the review team that was compiling the interim analysis was not included in the final report, and there must be reasons behind that."

Given that the logic of the right hon. Gentleman's argument and the evidence that he has put forward seem to imply that there will be more binge drinking and antisocial behaviour if the licensing hours are relaxed, will he argue that, to curb binge drinking, there should be a less flexible licensing regime and shorter drinking hours?

If the hon. Gentleman waits a few minutes, he will hear exactly what I am going to argue. It is not quite as foolish and short-term as that.

Let us consider what else was not said. We finally discover that the Home Office itself had very serious concerns about the Act. The former Home Secretary, as I said earlier, described the proposal as

"a leap in the dark".

Ellie Roy, the Home Office's crime reduction director, told a meeting of officials from Downing street, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that there was

"widespread concern that the licensing act will make matters worse".

She was supported by Leigh Lewis, a permanent secretary at the Home Office and the Government's most senior crime-fighting mandarin. At a meeting in February to discuss "Home Office concerns with the Licensing Act", Lewis outlined official unpublished research showing links between binge drinking and violence. He said:

"Violent crime was up 14 per cent., a significant proportion was taking place in proximity to licensed premises . . . Stranger crime was increasing significantly; and 47 per cent. of the victims of violent crime believed that their assailant was under the influence of alcohol".

None of these facts or expert opinions, available to the Government at the time, was put into the public domain during the passage of the Act—not one of them—and many of them were actively withheld.

This debate and the debate in Westminster Hall this morning have, at least, enabled us to focus on alcohol misuse. The right hon. Gentleman said that when the Act went through Committee, the Government did not provide this or that information. However, was it not the job of the Opposition to try to find out from the medical profession and the police their views and criticisms of what was proposed? Is it not the case that the Opposition have decided that this is a popular issue to exploit and, late in the day, are jumping on the bandwagon?

The hon. Gentleman has an interesting view of government and opposition. He assumes that we have to assume that the Government will tell lies. That is what his remarks amount to.

Let us be clear. No one objects to anyone having a good time; no one wants to stop people having fun or enjoying themselves. Of course, it is true that the vast majority of people can be trusted to behave responsibly and not to cause trouble for others, but that is not what we are talking about today. We are talking about the Government's clear decision to allow pubs to open for 24 hours a day—a decision that international evidence suggests could lead to greater irresponsible drinking.

In Western Australia, an extension of bar closing times to l am led to a rise in alcohol consumption, violence and drunkenness. In Scotland, one newspaper reported a

"huge increase in violent crime in some of Edinburgh's most lively areas",

with one senior police officer directly linking this to the increase in the number of licensed premises. In Ireland, the Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000 ushered in an era of more violence, more damage, and more disorder. The Irish Times reported that

"the consequences of excessive drinking are visible late at night on the streets of our cities, towns and villages. They are reflected in crowded accident and emergency wards in hospitals and, all too frequently, victims of alcohol-related violence end up on mortuary slabs".

The paper was clear what was responsible: It said:

"The rise in alcohol consumption was facilitated by longer pub opening hours."

The mess caused by Ireland's Intoxicating Liquor Act 2000 had to be followed by tough measures in the Intoxicating Liquor Acts 2003 and 2004. We can avoid the need for such a legislative onslaught here simply by delaying the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003.

The right hon. Gentleman complains that the Government failed to bring relevant statistics into the public domain when the Licensing Bill was considered, but surely the Opposition receive Short money so that they can reveal obvious points. For example, an Office for National Statistics survey in 1998 showed that 22 per cent. of men and 8 per cent. of women were binge drinkers, but six years later, each of those figures had increased by 1 per cent. I am not trying to minimise the issue, but the facts are there and it is up to the Opposition to oppose.

The approach is wonderful: the Government lie and we are at fault.

Let me address the solution for which the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) asked. In the Government's scramble last week, they probably realised that their original underpinning principle of 24-hour opening was wrong. Rather than stretching hours to decrease disorder, the new laws will actually increase violent and antisocial drunken behaviour. The Government still claim that 24-hour opening will lead to more responsible drinking, but I doubt that very much, as do most experts.

One only has to look at what happens when the youngsters who stagger out on to our streets at closing time go to places such as Faliraki or Ibiza. They drink for 24 hours, become drunk and disorderly and create trouble for the locals. In Britain, the front-line services will pick up the pieces. The impact on our already overstretched police and medical services will be huge. Chief Constable Steve Green said that in Nottingham, officers are diverted away from where they should be to cover the policing of the city centre. The Metropolitan Police Federation said that

"most police areas will be bereft of police officers from"

2 am

"because time is spent dealing with the consequences of binge drinking".

Ireland had to learn the hard way, with three years of misery followed by two major revisions of the law. We should not make the same mistake. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has called for pilot schemes in a small number of towns. His call has been supported by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, and also The Guardian, which reminds us that the Government were elected on a pledge to pursue "evidence-based policies". I agree with them. As the Chief Constable of Nottingham said when he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, there are a huge number of unknowns.

As part of the plans cobbled together last week, the Government announced alcohol disorder zones. How will those zones work? If they are drawn up geographically, they could end up penalising establishments that have never had any problems. If they are drawn up by establishment, they could force rowdy drunks to go to normally quiet pubs, thus ruining other customers' pleasure and destroying the reputation of decent landlords. Could a police force legally establish and sustain a zone, and could a zone be challenged? We do not know how robust the proposed regulatory regime will be.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No.

The proposal to exclude individuals from local pubs is equally naive. First, it requires the individual to be caught misbehaving in our under-policed cities in the early hours of the morning, and secondly the exclusion must be policed, presumably by bar staff, who are often young or temporary, in large drinking establishments. If it does work, what will it do but force people to different, more distant, pubs? It would encourage them to undertake a more extended pub crawl and perhaps to compound the felony with a drink-driving offence, thus putting the innocent public at even more risk. I hope that I am wrong, but remember that it took the Government nearly six years to get antisocial behaviour orders into a workable form.

The intelligent and reasonable approach is obvious: defer 24-hour drinking until these and other methods of dealing with binge drinking have been tested and made workable, and then pilot the liberalisation in a few local authority areas. We should only then let the Act come into full effect. That approach would cost nothing, and could indeed save a great deal. All it requires is a Government who will face the facts and put the interests of the many before the excesses of the few.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"considers that failure to implement the Licensing Act 2003 without delay would deny the local community increased powers of intervention and improved democratic accountability with regard to licensing, deny the police the expanded powers that are vital to their efforts to tackle alcohol-related crime and would prevent licensing authorities from receiving income from licensing fees needed to recover on-going expenditure in preparing for the new regime; believes that any delay in the implementation of the Act would undermine the prevention of crime and disorder and public nuisance, damage public safety and hinder the protection of children from harm; further believes that the Act will complement the delivery of the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England which aims to reduce excessive drinking and the harms that causes; and, furthermore, commends the proposals for Alcohol Disorder Zones and the extension of fixed penalty notices and other measures set out in 'Drinking Responsibly', the consultation paper published jointly by the Home Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on 21st January 2005."

I am absolutely delighted that we are having the debate because I hope that it will bring clarity to a matter that has become confused in a wide variety of ways.

Let me start with common ground. I agreed with every word of the first four or five minutes of the speech made by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). His description of the state of affairs that we must address was genuinely shocking and he was right to highlight the situation. The figures that I shall cite simply reinforce the points that he made. Half of all violent crime is alcohol related, and one in five violent crimes occurs in or around pubs and clubs. Alcohol misuse costs up to £20 billion a year, and up to 70 per cent. of entrants to accident and emergency departments in hospitals overnight are fuelled by alcohol. The problem exists, but it is important to acknowledge that the situation that the right hon. Gentleman eloquently described—and that my statistics reinforce—exists today without any change to licensing hours whatsoever.

Will the Home Secretary tell us the number of road accidents resulting in injury or fatality that are caused by alcohol or drug abuse?

I do not have the figures to hand, but the hon. Gentleman is correct to say that alcohol is a major aspect of fatalities among people who drive. Such abuse is serious, but that is the case whether we have the current licensing arrangements or the new flexible arrangements that have been established.

rose—

I shall give way a couple more times and then make progress.

Will my right hon. Friend bear it in mind that the genesis of licensing law reform came in 1995 when the then Conservative Government produced a measure, as part of their deregulation initiative, to extend the opening hours of pubs until midnight? That was passed in the House without question and failed only when it was voted down in the House of Lords. The idea of extending licensing hours came from the last Conservative Government.

My hon. Friend is exactly right. To be fair to the Conservative Government, they were trying to examine the matter on its merits, rather than being driven by a populist response to specific issues as they came up.

The right hon. Gentleman has been talking about drink-related accidents on our roads. There is a problem in this country because there is insufficient knowledge about the length of time for which alcohol stays in the bloodstream, and thus the time for which one can be over the limit after having a drink. Does he not think that that problem could get worse under 24-hour licensing?

No, I do not, but I shall address that point in a second.

There is common ground among hon. Members about the problems caused by alcohol consumption in our society, but the argument has confused two separate questions, as the motion deliberately tries to do: first, what will be the effect of flexible licensing hours; and secondly, what can we do to address alcohol-fuelled crime, especially violent crime? I want to try to disentangle those important questions.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I am going to make a little progress.

On the first question, evidence shows that liberalising licensing hours does not necessary lead to the increased use of alcohol. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden says that he is looking for evidence, so let me simply cite the effect of changes in this country.

Several well documented conclusions were drawn from the change to all-day opening in Scotland in 1976, which I shall cite to inform the House, as the right hon. Gentleman would want me to. In 1974, average spending on alcohol in Scotland was greater than in England and Wales, but following the change to the licensing laws, the gap narrowed and in 1983—seven years after the changes—the average Scottish household was spending 7 per cent. less than the UK average.

To address the point made by the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), drunk-driving convictions in Scotland increased by 1.2 per cent., compared with an increase of 36 per cent. in England and Wales over the same period. Violence against the person increased in Scotland by 16.7 per cent., compared with 43.8 per cent. in England and Wales.

Convictions for under-age drinking fell by 18.6 per cent. in Scotland in the four years after reform, compared with a rise of more than 23 per cent. in England and Wales. Convictions for drunkenness in Scotland fell by 13.6 per cent. in the five years following the change, compared with a rise of 13.1 per cent. in England and Wales. In the 19 to 26 age group, the decline in Scotland was 14.1 per cent., compared with a rise of 19.2 per cent. in England and Wales. Those were the effects of the changes—

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I shall give two more examples, then give way.

The second change was to all-day opening in England and Wales, for which the Conservative Government legislated in 1988. The introduction of all-day opening that year was followed by a decline in per capita alcohol consumption in each of the next five years. The consequence is clear. My final example before giving way is that of extended new year's eve opening in England and Wales after 1999. Most police forces and local authorities reported significant improvements as a result of the change. That is the evidence of the state of affairs resulting from changes made in this country, and it must be taken into account.

Could not the first set of statistics that my right hon. Friend presented be read differently, to show that although consumption in Scotland has increased, it has increased faster in this country? The question that the Government have to answer is whether further liberalisation of licensing laws will lessen consumption or increase it.

My right hon. Friend is entirely right—that is the question that must be addressed. People of good will can come to different views of the potential change; I simply place in evidence the fact that where change has taken place, it has not led to the increase in consumption that was feared—in fact, the reverse has happened. I accept that many hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and others, have, for reasons of perfect propriety, taken the view that the proposed step is risky and undesirable—but the principal force of my argument is that we should not entangle the debate on licensing hours with the debate on how to fight the impact of over-consumption of alcohol, alcohol-related crime and so on. Both are important issues that must be given proper consideration, but they are separate: the link between the two is not made and should not be thought to have been made.

The Home Secretary reads our local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press, so he is aware of the problems in King's Lynn affecting the residents of Pilot street in particular, and of the fact that most of the local police apparently oppose liberalisation. I do not know whether he has spoken to the chief constable of Norfolk about the proposals, but what have the Norfolk police told him about the Government's proposals?

I shall mention the chief constable of Norfolk if the hon. Gentleman wants, but the fact is that the problems in King's Lynn have arisen without any of the proposed changes being made.

Will the Home Secretary come to the London borough of Havering and speak to local residents, police, councillors and accident and emergency department staff? The fallout from the largest concentration of late-night entertainment centres outside the west end, in Romford, monopolises the services of the police and the local hospital. I guarantee that he will not find anyone who wants licensing hours extended.

I shall not accept the hon. Lady's kind invitation to Havering and Romford. However, I visit many places and discuss with people precisely those questions.

The Home Secretary properly attempts to distinguish 24-hour licensing and binge drinking, but the former has two effects. The first is to allow perfectly normal, reasonable, law-abiding people more time for their leisure and pleasure, and we all agree with that—there is no argument between us. The other effect, shown by the operational evidence from Nottinghamshire, where Stephen Green is chief constable—the sort of evidence that has persuaded the right hon. Gentleman's own advisers—is that it creates the opportunity for further binge drinking. If he has answers to or effective methods of dealing with the problem of binge drinking, the opportunity opens up for a safer extension to 24-hour opening.

I agree with part of that statement. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that in places like Nottingham city centre we need a package of measures to deal with the ill. I know about Nottingham—many people have spoken to me about the situation there and I have discussed it with the chief constable. I understand that we need a set of measures to target that particular problem in a focused way. That is why, last Friday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety announced a set of measures to do just that, including the establishment of alcohol disorder zones. I cannot predict what will happen, but I would be surprised if Nottingham did not fall within the relevant category. Also announced were powers to enable the immediate closure of establishments—for making under-age sales, for example—and to tackle irresponsible promotions. We shall also review the penalties for alcohol-related disorder. Why? Because with each of those measures, we acknowledge the truth of the right hon. Gentleman's words: it is necessary to move away from any idea of accommodating the problem of alcohol-fuelled disorder and towards its eradication through the type of measure that I have suggested. The key point is that those measures stand in their own terms. They are designed to deal with the situation in Romford, Nottingham and other areas, irrespective of the issues relating to licensing flexibility.

Does the Home Secretary not understand that having to announce all those new initiatives to deal with the problems in all our town centres under the current regime makes nonsense of liberalising the drinking laws? What is the point of the initiatives, if not to deal with the present situation?

The aim of the police, including the chief constables of Nottingham and of Norfolk and the other chief constables with whom I have discussed the problems, is to make an impact on binge drinking through the type of measure that I have announced. That is why the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers accompanied my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on the platform of last Friday's press conference to commit ACPO as a whole to implementing the measures and making them work. I can tell the House confidentially—[Laughter.] I know that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden is concerned about confidentiality. The principal reason for the concern that is rightly adduced by some senior police officers was simple: there were resources issues and those who were causing alcohol-related crime—establishments in the areas in which binge drinking was common—were not, in the view of the police, making a sufficient contribution. We have addressed that problem; the measures announced by my right hon. Friend last Friday have to be carried through, but they explicitly answer those concerns.

Such measures reinforce the implementation of the recommendations in our alcohol harm reduction strategy. Those include close working with industry to draft a code of practice covering on and off trade and producers. As an aside, I observe that some of the problems to which the right hon. Gentleman referred are as much the result of off-licence purchases as of on-licence purchases. That problem needs to be dealt with, and alcohol disorder zones give us the powers to tackle it. The code will be supported by an accreditation scheme that incentivises good practice and highlights poor operators. We are working on making the sensible drinking message easier and clearer, so that people can make informed choices, and on establishing a range of fixed penalty notices. The police will have powers to close immediately an area or premises where disorder is occurring or anticipated, or where there is excessive noise.

I emphasise that, thanks to the legislation, we have a unique opportunity in the fact that all licences are up for renewal in the coming six months. Today, I ask that all applicants be properly assessed by the local authority on the basis of advice from the police regarding their appropriateness to hold a licence to sell alcohol. We therefore have a new mechanism for review.

Central London has particular problems. One of the grave concerns about the new initiatives felt by those who represent the area—including the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), with whom I have Covent Garden in common—is that many of them will simply give the green light to the larger-scale outlets of the alcohol and entertainment industry and that some of the small, independent, family-run businesses that lie at the heart of our communities will either be driven out of business, or forced to sell up to a larger organisation. In other words, we will be playing to the lowest common denominator.

I do not accept that. I think that as a result of the proposed measures, the well run family pub will be in a far stronger position vis-à-vis the competition.

There is widespread support on the Opposition Benches for the approach that those who cause some of the disorder in our towns and cities should pay more to cover policing costs. In Wirral, the police have taken eight cases before the magistrates to try to deny a licence to those who produce many drunks at the end of the day, and they have lost all of those cases. Under the new system, will my right hon. Friend support local authorities, when they are pushed by highly paid QCs on the other side, to maintain the line against licensing continuing?

I can answer that question unequivocally: yes. I cite an example not from the Wirral but from my own constituency, where precisely these events happened. A licence was granted on appeal. There were precisely the legal issues that my right hon. Friend has described. It was granted despite the opposition of both the local authority and the police. I strongly hold the view that these measures, for the first time, will give a greatly increased power, compared with the previous situation, to tackle precisely the abuse that my right hon. Friend describes.

The right hon. Gentleman speaks about the review of licences by local authorities that will take place. The figures for the fees were produced on Friday, and they are based on rateable value. This coincides with a general revaluation, which means that there will be a perverse incentive for local licensees to make an application during the transitional period. To ameliorate that, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has announced a review. Will that review take into consideration the actual cost during the period of transition? Will it include the fee level? Will consideration be given to the structure of the licensing committees in terms of numbers?

My right hon. Friend has made it perfectly clear—she will speak for herself when she replies—that the monitoring process will include all aspects of these matters with a view to assessing the best way to go forward.

My right hon. Friend has mentioned some of the powers and initiatives that the Government want to have and to take to tackle binge drinking. I am a strong supporter of the Licensing Act 2003, but I shall be interested to know whether anything more can be done to support those in the alcohol industry who, voluntarily, are trying to do something about happy hours and incentives for people to binge drink. Can the Government take any more serious action to work with the industry in that direction?

My hon. Friend is correct. One of the measures that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced on Friday was designed specifically to encourage that approach. We intend to offer support to the alcohol industry in banning irresponsible promotions. We want to see all promotions that encourage speed drinking ended. These are promotions such as, "All you can drink for £X.99", or, "All girls drink free between 11 and 12." We want to see a set of measures that will strengthen the voluntary regulation of the industry. We are supporting the British Beer and Pub Association and others in developing guidance to owners and operators that will ban irresponsible drink promotions. I hope that I have given my hon. Friend the assurance that he is seeking.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), I support the measures set out in the Licensing Act 2003. I was concerned enough about the guidelines issued by my local authority to write asking it to strengthen them. It was able to do so in some areas. It replied, tending to say that the Government's guidelines did not allow it to go as far as I wanted so as to have local control over these issues, as promised in the Act. Is my right hon. Friend happy that the Government's guidelines are robust enough to enable us to achieve our goals?

I am happy with that. More importantly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is happy with that.

My hon. Friend is on to a correct point in saying that it is critical to ensure that Members and others press their local authorities to take the action that is necessary to deal with the situation. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is of the view that in the process of implementing these changes, and if it emerges that there are genuine constraints in the guidelines that need to be addressed, the situation will be addressed. At present, we are categoric that the guidelines are right to deal with these matters. As I said a short while ago, I ask all applicants to ensure that all applications in this process of renewal are properly assessed and that the opportunity is taken to do that in detail.

The weakest position will arise where a local authority and a local crime reduction partnership have not properly assessed what strategically must be done to attack the problem in a particular community. It is part of the strength of our democracy that different issues arise in different areas. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will put pressure on their crime reduction partnerships and local authorities to address the issue in the proper way.

The measures to which I have referred are substantial in range. A flexible range of measures will be available after review that hit profits in areas where there is abuse that needs to be dealt with through, for example, a temporary or permanent reduction in trading hours. The maximum fine for selling to under-18s is increased from £1,000 to £5,000. The new licensing fee package has been announced and we believe that it will make things more effective. I have referred to the banning of irresponsible promotions and other issues that need to be tackled in that area.

I shall focus for a moment on alcohol disorder zones, which will create a direct link between the level of disorder in a locality and the financial contribution that is required from the industry. I believe that the zones will act as a powerful incentive for the industry to get its own house in order in any given locality. That is why I so strongly support the zones. Before an alcohol disorder zone is imposed, operators will be given a warning. They will be given a chance to work with the police and the council to agree an action plan for improvement. This approach is not draconian or arbitrary. It is designed to ensure that everybody takes the issue seriously and addresses it properly. This is the right approach and the right way to go forward.

We are establishing a 24-hour closure power against premises that repeatedly sell to under-18s. I do not believe that the family pub will be threatened by that because they do not repeatedly sell to under-18s. The power will apply to both on and off-licences, which is a strength of the proposals. The power will be triggered where evidence is gathered to suggest persistent selling to under-18s.

The right hon. Gentleman has announced a number of what appear to be sensible measures. One of the concerns that I raised earlier was that many existing measures are not being used. I take, for example, under-age drinking. There has been a halving of the prosecutions for sales to under-age drinkers and almost an elimination of cautions and prosecutions against under-18s who have bought drink. How will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that these measures are used?

The right hon. Gentleman is right. It is a point that I raised with the police when I first met them to discuss these matters. There is an issue about resources, which we are tackling. There is also an issue about new powers, which we are addressing in the way that I have described. There is also an issue, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, about the use of existing powers so that there is proper enforcement.

I can say only two things at this juncture. First, the greater powers that we have given to local government, working with the police, will strengthen the ability to enforce. That will be their direct result. Secondly, my colleagues in the police have been clear in acknowledging that there is a need to act more on the enforcement side. To be frank, the fact that we have given them what they are looking for in this regard will enable us more effectively to carry through our policy.

We already have a number of measures in place to tackle the problem of alcohol-fuelled disorder. The police enforcement campaigns, the alcohol harm reduction strategy, the Christmas drinking campaigns and the introduction of the new fixed penalty notices are having an effect. Part of the industry is already raising its game and acting responsibly, and we welcome that. However, we need to do far more. The measures proposed last Friday in the consultation paper are a robust package to ensure that the industry and individuals take their full responsibility for their part in the problems of alcohol-related disorder. We must keep clear in our minds the need to have a focused strategy to tackle alcohol abuse, which is what we have put forward. We must not confuse that issue, which is very important, with the other important issue of more flexible opening hours, which I believe will be of benefit to the country as a whole.

I start by feeling somewhat embarrassed because both my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport have been friends of mine for in excess of a quarter of a century. I hope that they will not take offence at some of the things that I have to say.

I fundamentally believe in representative government. Nobody gets into this place, nobody becomes a junior Minister, a Cabinet Minister or even a Prime Minister unless they purport to represent their constituents. In pursuit of trying to represent the interests of my constituents, for more than six or seven years I have been urging Ministers to take action to tackle the disorder, the nuisance and the loutish behaviour that is making life intolerable for people living in many parts of my constituency. It is not just the people living there whose lives are made intolerable but people who want to go to the theatre or a restaurant in the area where all that drinking is taking place. That applies to my constituency, Covent Garden, our part of the west end and Camden Town. I have been raising this issue for a number of years, but we have never had a jot of support from Tory or Liberal Democrat Front Benchers. I have been joined in my efforts by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) and, if I am truthful, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), and his predecessor, Peter Brooke, who is now a Member of the House of Lords. We have pressed for the law to be toughened up to protect law-abiding people who are going about their business and, above all, to ensure that local residents can maintain the quiet enjoyment of their homes, to which everyone is entitled. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North can claim the credit for some of the best parts of the Licensing Act 2003.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) was a Minister of State at the Home Office, I took a delegation of local people to see him. When we came out of his office, they said that he really understood what they were talking about, and listened to their points about disorder. Partly as a result of that meeting, the law was changed so that licensed premises that are a source of disorder can be closed by the police for 24 hours without resort to magistrates or anyone else. That was greatly to my right hon. Friend's credit, and it was a big step forward.

About four years ago, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North, I met the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). We made many more points, and I remember confessing that I had not pressed my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South enough. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn agreed that 24-hour closures could be extended beyond premises causing disorder to premises causing serious nuisance. That provision has since become law. He agreed that councils should have a licensing plan so that if they received applications for a new premises they could say, "I'm sorry, this street has enough booze outlets already". That, too, is an important provision in the Licensing Act. He also agreed that all the costs of dealing with licensing, when transferred to local authorities, would have to be met in full from the fees charged to the licensing applicants. When he agreed to those three concessions, one or two officials, while not exactly grinding their teeth, were none too jolly about it. Nevertheless, it was the right thing to do.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, responsibility for the booze laws was transferred to her Department. I mentioned the three undertakings that we had been given, but she told me that her officials could not find any record of them. Fortunately, I had issued a press release, which was cleared by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, and when I passed a copy to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, she accepted those undertakings, all three of which were included in the Licensing Act. There were further meetings with Ministers, and other issues were raised in debate. One of the problems was that change had become an article of faith for Ministers, and there was an unrelenting commitment to 24-hour opening which, it was believed, would end British binge drinking—everybody would be knocking back the odd Campari in delicate circumstances à la Tuscany. I never believed that that would be the case, and we could have avoided many of the problems that have confronted the Government in the past few weeks and months if Ministers had listened more carefully to representations made by MPs on behalf of their constituents, to organisations such as Alcohol Concern, to academics who had studied the topic, and to the police. In fairness to Ministers, some of the police criticisms of the Government proposals came a bit late in the day. I exhorted the police to object when the Licensing Bill was going through Parliament, but they would not do so, so they only have themselves to blame.

I remain concerned about the extension of opening hours. To give a simple example, at one end of a street is the Dog and Duck, which still closes at 11 o'clock. In the middle of the street is a pub called the Pig and Whistle, which receives permission to close at 12 o'clock. A fancy wine bar at the other end of the street closes at 1 o'clock. Instead of being woken up and disturbed by people turning out at 11 o'clock from all three establishments, the residents are woken up at 11, 12 and 1 o'clock, with intermediate problems caused by shuffling and shouting as people move from the pub closing at 11 o'clock to the one closing at 12 o'clock and then to the wine bar closing at 1 o'clock.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I do not have time, I am afraid, and I will prevent other Members from making speeches if I accept interventions.

It is likely that the changes to opening hours will result in more booze being consumed. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has said—and I hope that this will be the case—that if

"local people don't want 24 hour drinking or extended hours they won't have to have it—for the first time the Licensing Act puts control over licensing decisions in the hands of local people and their representatives."

I hope that means that councils can reject applications for longer opening hours if local people object to them. In my constituency, where my right hon. Friend lives, there will be objections to most applications, so I hope that the council will reject them. I hope that the Standards Board for England will not complain if local councillors start to lobby the licensing committee to look after the interests of local people.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I do not have time, I am afraid.

We must remember that we are not dealing with the odd individual who runs the Rovers Return or the Queen Vic. We are usually dealing with large, well funded, nationwide chains and, in some cases, multinationals with lots of money that are likely to challenge court decisions, thus increasing councils' costs. We have been promised, however, that the fees charged will meet costs. I have made representations to Ministers, as have the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster and my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North. The fee levels have been revised and improved, but they will still leave Camden council with a £2 million deficit over the next three or four years, so it is clear that the fees will not meet costs, which is quite unacceptable. The Government should make a clear commitment so that if they have got it wrong, Camden council, Westminster city council and other councils that operate at a loss can recoup their losses. I choose my words carefully in saying that it would add injury to insult if people had to pay for the licensing system for all those sources of nuisance.

There is one last point that I shall make. Several times we made representations to Ministers, drawing attention to the fact that many licences contain conditions and also undertakings, which are not quite as powerful as the conditions. We pressed Ministers to require someone applying for a new licence to disclose to the new organisation—the council—the undertakings, as well as the conditions, because many of those undertakings protected local people. Ministers rejected that. If there are to be the revisions in the law that have been proposed recently, I hope they include the requirement that applicants disclose to the council not just the conditions, but the undertakings that were introduced to protect people. That will be a step forward.

I hope that in future the Government will learn and that, instead of listening to ghastly organisations like the Portman Group, which is just a front for the booze industry, they will pay more attention to what elected Members of Parliament and local councillors are saying to protect their people.

I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). Perhaps many more of us should have been listening rather earlier to his remarks. I hope he will consider me a repenting sinner. As the Liberal Democrats support the motion in the name of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the House should be aware that we are being consistent with the concerns that we expressed during the passage of the Licensing Act 2003, and with our decision to vote against both the Second and Third Readings of that Act.

During the passage of the Act, we had some concerns about the Government's motivation for introducing the proposals. Reference has been made to that famous text message,

"Cldnt give a XXXX 4 last ordrs? Vote Labour 4 xtra time."

We wondered whether the motivation was to garner the youth vote, rather than to address the real problem of binge drinking that afflicts the nation. There are now real concerns on the part of the public and many hon. Members about various provisions of the Licensing Act. There is clearly not a great deal of public support for the provisions. A recent BBC poll for the "Breakfast" programme showed that 67 per cent. of people thought the legislation would increase the trouble on our streets and 62 per cent. thought the Act likely to make Britain a worse place in which to live.

If the right controls and the right support mechanisms are put in place, flexibility in our licensing laws could help address the problems of binge drinking. Our concerns are that we do not have the right support measures and controls in place. For example, as I shall amplify, we do not believe that the powers of local authorities are adequate. We do not believe that support mechanisms—for example, the availability of public transport—are in place, and we continue to be worried about the fee structure so recently announced. However, we acknowledge that if we could develop the continental café culture, it could have some benefits.

We welcomed from the beginning the increased powers that the Act gives to police and others to close down institutions—pubs, clubs and others—which experience significant problems, but as others have pointed out, we do not seem to be using even existing legislation to combat such problems. Examples have been given of provisions that are not being fully utilised, and a couple of other examples serve to illustrate the point. Only 12 landlords on average each year since 1997 have been prosecuted for allowing drunken or riotous behaviour on their premises. In the same period only 11 people in total have been prosecuted for buying drinks for friends who were incapable as a result of binge drinking. We welcome some of the increased powers, but we hope that the existing powers will be more effectively used.

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify his party's position? He said that he would vote for the motion, which states that

"extended opening hours will have an adverse serious effect on the health of the nation."

So are the Liberal Democrats against extended opening hours?

I hope I have made it clear that we believe that with the right control mechanisms and support mechanisms in place, extended opening hours may help. Our argument is that at present the support and control mechanisms that we believe are necessary are not in place. Without them extended opening hours will lead to increased harm.

Will the hon. Gentleman sketch out what he thinks should be done? For example, he said that the existing powers were not being used sufficiently. When I speak to the police in my area about that, they say they do not have the resources to enforce those powers. They will welcome the new fees that have been announced and the new approach in the Act, which allows the cost of enforcement and inspection to be included in the fees, rather than just the administration costs for the licence.

Of course I intend to sketch out what we believe should happen. There would not be much point in making a speech if all I did was to criticise. I shall make some positive suggestions. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the fact that his police, and no doubt police all over the country, are deeply concerned that if they do not have increased resources, they will not be able to carry out the policing that is necessary. The increased fees that have been proposed will provide additional resources only to the local authorities to enable them to do the monitoring. We have still to see where the additional resources for the police are to come from. The Secretary of State may wish to say more about that when she winds up.

The debate has been unfairly characterised as being about 24-hour drinking. We recognise that the vast majority of pubs are unlikely to want to move towards that. The powers that pubs were given during the new year period to open for as much as 36 hours were not taken up by a single pub, as far as I am aware. The Home Secretary was right to point out that the debate is not just about pubs and clubs. With more than 50 per cent. of alcohol being purchased from supermarkets and other off-licence establishments, we need to address that as well, as is acknowledged in some of the measures being introduced.

In my constituency, Bath, a recent newspaper article sums up the nature of the problem that we face. On 18 December last year The Bath Chronicle reported:

"Insp Paul Mogg said yesterday that he and his officers could no longer keep pace with the rising level of drink-fuelled violence in the city each weekend.

Insp Mogg said that revellers and his own officers were being assaulted on the streets, and many residents were too scared to venture out in the evening.

And he said Bath's reputation was being tarnished by armies of drunks who caused 'mayhem' on Fridays and Saturdays."

Other Members have referred to the numerous statistics about the binge drinking problem in this country. The Secretary of State rightly points out that these are problems that exist now, before the introduction of the new legislation. Reference has been made to the health costs, the impact on crime, and the problems that face many employers because of days of work being missed. That represents a great deal of human misery and a significant cost to the country, estimated by the Government to be in the region of £20 billion a year. We need to focus more on the problem in relation to young people. As we have already heard, British teenagers are drinking far more than any of their European counterparts.

I know that it is Liberal Democrat policy to allow people to vote at the age of 16, because the Liberal Democrats believe that that is the age at which people become adults. Does the hon. Gentleman therefore also believe that that is the age at which people should be able to buy alcohol, and if not, why the inconsistency?

The hon. Gentleman rightly points out that we have a belief that the age of 16 should be consistently used for all issues, including the one that he is talking about. Our saying that 16-year-olds should be able to buy alcohol does not mean, however, that we are advocating that they should become involved in binge drinking. It is worrying that the figures demonstrate that about 33,000 children are admitted to hospital every year because of alcohol-related illnesses. In another debate on the same issue in Westminster Hall earlier today, my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) referred to the situation in the Grampian health authority, where two young people under 15 are admitted every single week with acute alcohol poisoning.

There are real issues, and the question is whether the 2003 Act as it currently stands and is intended to be implemented will work. When the legislation was introduced, many of us believed more passionately than now that there was a chance that it would work. As has been said, much of the information provided by the Government told only half the story.

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is Lib Dem policy to legalise drinking at the age of 16? Does he think that that will contribute to a reduction in binge drinking?

The answer is yes. I do not think that I could explain the position more clearly. I have already set it out to the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry). I am clear about that policy, but I have no reason to accept any suggestion from the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) that it would lead to an increase in binge drinking if we get the correct measures in place. Our concern is that the legislation does not provide us with the complete panoply of measures that we believe are necessary.

We were sold a false prospectus by the Government during the passage of the legislation in terms, for instance, of whether the police supported it. We now know that very many police are deeply concerned. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir John Stevens, made that clear when he recently said:

"The move towards 24-hour drinking needs to be slowed down. The fact that large groups of people will be coming out at 3am or 4am will mean that we have to man the streets to ensure they behave."

We now know that even some of the information that was to be included in the alcohol harm reduction strategy and that would have been helpful subsequent consideration of the issues was removed. According to the Daily Mail, that includes this initial warning:

"Relaxing availability increases general harm whether through more outlets (Finland), denser outlets (California), or longer hours (Western Australia)."

The consensus has certainly moved away from support for the measure. We have also heard that there were deep concerns even in the Cabinet. The Prime Minister has already referred to binge drinking as the British disease, and as we have heard, the former Home Secretary described the proposals as a leap in the dark.

If we were given a dodgy dossier, however, the real issue is whether we are being given a sensible set of proposals that will really work. We are being told that local authorities will have significant powers to deal with the issues, but the more we study the Bill, the more we see its deep flaws. For example, at the very last minute, the Government accepted Liberal Democrat proposals that there should be some measures in place to address the issue of cumulative impact. The idea of special saturation policies was referred to. It does not appear in the Bill, but it is included in the guidance. Nevertheless, that opportunity is a rather thin one. For example, the very same guidance says:

"nothing in this Guidance should be taken as indicating that any requirement of licensing law or any other law may be overridden".

It does not give particularly special powers.

When local authorities such as mine, Bath and North East Somerset, considered whether to introduce a special saturation policy, they realised that there were two problems. First, in the area immediately outside the saturation policy areas a green light would be given to all sorts of developments that might be unwelcome to local residents. Secondly, and more importantly, the authorities recognised that there was a real possibility of legal challenge. Indeed, Andrew McNeill, director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, recently said:

"I think it's going to be a legal minefield".

Local authorities are not very keen to pursue matters with the power of the big breweries that might challenge them and the legal costs that are likely to follow.

There are also concerns about the guidance relating to temporary event licences, as it will make it very difficult for local people to do anything about raves in their area. As the Secretary of State will know, only the police are allowed to object, and they have only 48 hours in which to do so. A rave organiser can simply put a letter through a rural police station letterbox on a Friday, and there will be no time whatever for action to be taken.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point, but I want to go back to his previous point. A number of local authorities have attempted to strike a balance between licensees and the local population. Does he appreciate that those agreements will now mean nothing unless the Government remove the "must" obligation to grant permission unless there is an objection?

I was about to come to that point. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman—perhaps he will have an opportunity to develop his argument later, if he catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker—will be well aware that, because of the problems that he mentions, the magistrates courts may become clogged up with all sorts of applications and we may have difficulty in implementing the measures anyway. I was going to make that point in a minute, but I am grateful to him for giving me the chance to do so now.

The local flexibility that the Government talk about is very one-sided. The Government say that, on licensing, they strongly recommend

"that statements of policy recognise that longer licensing hours"

are

"necessary to reduce the friction of late fast food outlets, taxi ranks and other sources of transport which lead to disorder and disturbance".

Earlier, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras asked the Secretary of State whether it would be possible for a local authority to say no to any increases. The problem is that local authorities are required to have a licensing policy saying that they recognise that increasing licensing hours is a good idea. That makes it very difficult for them to follow the line that he might want to suggest. To add insult to injury, the guidance on the special saturation policy areas that local authorities might wish to introduce states specifically that no rule can be introduced in those areas saying that all the pubs must close at the same time. The guidance forbids local authorities from doing that. When he asked the Secretary of State about that issue, she should have said that such an approach was not possible.

There are also concerns about the role of local councillors. How can it be right for a local councillor who represents a particular area of a town or city where there is a serious problem to be told that he or she cannot serve on the licensing committee considering licences in that area? Frankly, that is complete madness.

The fees themselves are another problem. The Secretary of State has introduced a new set of fees. Many people will welcome them, but it is worth pointing out that the fees on which she consulted extensively and those that were introduced are significantly different. The new fees have come as a huge shock to the pubs and breweries, and various other related organisations. I am not arguing about whether they are right or wrong, but the publication of the fees within days of the first named day, 7 February, makes it hugely difficult for those involved to decide what action to take. At the same time, many bodies—not least small sports clubs—are deeply worried that the fee levels are far too high. All those arrangements have been introduced at very short notice.

On small clubs, my constituent, Mr. John Crosthwaite-Eyre, who is treasurer of Dunwood Manor golf club, has informed me that the price of the club's licence will increase from £16 to £1,145, which is simply outrageous.

The hon. Gentleman's example is one of many that will undoubtedly be cited. I will give him advance notice of how the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will respond to his point: she will say that the Government have given local amateur sports clubs new powers to obtain additional money and that only 2,000 clubs have taken up the offer, although many thousands of them could do so. When the Government introduced that concession on rates, however, it was intended to provide additional support to sports clubs to help them carry out sporting activities. The tune seems to have changed, and sports clubs must use that benefit, if they take it up, to pay the increased fees to which the hon. Gentleman has alluded, which cannot be right.

The Government have recently introduced a set of new sticking-plaster measures. Stung by the criticisms, they have brought in proposals, which are only proposals, for alcohol disorder zones, a "three strikes and you're out" scheme and charges, which might or might not be made, to certain pubs and clubs to help pay for policing, which would be similar to the situation with football clubs. If the package of measures is going to work, we need to know where the new measures, which may or may not be sensible, are going and how they fit into the overall picture.

The motion calls for further time, which makes a great deal of sense: time to consider the new proposals; time to consider how we can improve education about alcohol misuse; time to consider how we can provide more financial support for those working to combat alcohol misuse; time to consider unit labelling on all drinks; time for the Government and the industry to consider how they can tackle unacceptable promotions, which many companies used to run and which many companies are, I am delighted to stay, stopping under the voluntary code; time for more training for health workers; time for the Government to introduce their promise to make pubs a single use class—we have still not had the details—under our planning legislation; and, perhaps crucially, time to gather benchmarking statistics, which my noble Friend Lord Avebury proposed in another place, to allow us to assess the Bill at a future date. I genuinely believe that the public in this country do not want to see the immediate implementation of the legislation. At the least, they want to see a delay while we get some of the other measures sorted out, increase support for the police and local councils and provide local councils with greater flexibility.

I hope that the Secretary of State will comment on this final point. This House has welcomed the concept of pre-legislative scrutiny, which has been tried on a number of occasions. There is growing talk about post-legislative scrutiny being carried out by both Houses, and I hope that the Government will be willing to introduce the concept of post-legislative scrutiny whenever the Bill is implemented.

Order. May I remind all hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 12-minute limit on all speeches by Back Benchers?

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests in relation to my chairing the all-party leisure group. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), who made some good points about sports clubs and the presumption in the guidance, which I have discussed privately with the Secretary of State. He sat on the fence on some other matters and I would have liked more detail on what he wants the Government to do. I was startled by his party's policy on extending the legal age at which one can buy alcohol to 16.

The hon. Member for Bath was less confused than the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who wants to suspend implementation of the Licensing Act 2003, but who intervened on the Home Secretary to say that he thinks that we should liberalise the licensing laws once we have implemented measures to stop binge drinking, which is the approach adopted by the Government and in the 2003 Act.