25 January 2008
Public sector agencies are bearing the brunt of 'round-the-clock drinking and gambling'. But Gordon Brown seems to have lost his earlier resolve to reverse the newly liberalised laws. Peter Hetherington reports
As the New Year dawned, public agencies charged with overseeing our health, wellbeing and safety could have been forgiven for examining the early wreckage of 2008 with dismay. Mayhem on the streets again brought hospital casualty departments to breaking point, with calls to ambulance services up by 16% in London alone in the first flush of the year.
With police resources further stretched, Britain certainly cemented its position as the alcohol-fuelled society of the western world. But six months ago, it seemed that the prime minister's patience had finally snapped. After all, 'binge drinking' does not just cost society dear, it presents an extremely negative image of the country abroad.
Of all the symbolic changes in direction floated by the new PM when he took office, reviewing England's liberal drinking regime – courtesy of licensing law changes in 2005 – was thought to be high on his agenda, along with shelving plans for a super-casino in Manchester, part of an equally contentious programme to liberalise gambling.
The Daily Mail and its editor Paul Dacre, a surprising Brown confidante and cheerleader for the anti-gambling-binge-drinking brigade, was overjoyed. Here was a PM, it seemed, with moral fibre. Brown, after all, had ordered a review of the 2003 Licensing Act and said that he would 'not hesitate' to tighten the rules if the results warranted it.
Both of these hotly disputed areas, crudely dubbed 'round-the-clock drinking and gambling', were pushed through Parliament by the ultra-Blairite
Tessa Jowell, when heading the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Brown had kept his head well down then, which led observers to question his commitment.
Jowell has since been 'rewarded' with the new post of minister for the Olympics, the ultimate poisoned chalice. The total cost for the 2012 Games – another pet DCMS project – is certain to exceed its revised £9.3bn budget, four times the original 'estimate'.
But Brown, it seems, is fast learning that grand-standing on alcohol abuse – not to mention the potential for a gambling epidemic with huge casinos – is one thing; translating a worthy moral stand, with Calvinist undertones, into action is quite another.
The licensing review is expected to report in early 2008, to be followed later this year by the Department of Health's report on tackling alcohol abuse. Also due shortly is a long-delayed statement from Communities Secretary Hazel Blears on regeneration alternatives to East Manchester's plans for a huge casino.
Interestingly, the city's council has commissioned its own studies showing that the casino operation would be strictly controlled and would not lead to problem gambling. It also found that no alternative regeneration plan would come remotely near to levering in the hundreds of millions of pounds promised by the casino developers.
Labour council leader Sir Richard Lease says they are 'absolutely' pursuing their plan. 'This will be incredibly well regulated and not the “temple of sin” some have suggested,' he said.
But that row is small beer compared with Brown's dilemma on alcohol abuse. Experts from the medical and licensing fields, invited to a recent Downing Street 'binge-drinking summit', are convinced that the powerful drinks lobby is finally 'getting to' Brown. 'At every stage, the government has been outmanoeuvred by the industry,' complains Sir Simon Milton, chair of the Local Government Association.
The LGA has a special axe to grind, with member councils losing out financially due to a shortfall in licence fee income.
Professor Ian Gilmore, a liver specialist and president of the Royal College of Physicians, who attended the Number 10 summit, has expressed concern about the undue influence wielded by the drinks industry. He told Public Finance: 'The fact that Gordon Brown held it demonstrated that he has a concern. But the fact that the vast majority of attendees were from the industry [also] demonstrates that they are a powerful voice.'
Misgivings about Downing Street's commitment to revise the Licensing Act, by curbing opening times and clamping down on cheap drink promotions, contrast with earlier reports of the summit. Last month, for instance, the Independent on Sunday ran a story headlined 'Brown's secret summit to beat binge drinking'. It maintained that confidential minutes showed the PM planned a radical response to binge drinking to make drunkenness as taboo as smoking in public.
Measures floated were said to include a ban on outdoor advertising within a certain distance of schools and, controversially, an idea to issue fixed-penalty fines to parents of children caught drinking. Stating the obvious, the minutes noted that Britain's drinking habits represented an 'ingrained social and cultural problem'. The solution? Education in its 'broadest context', similar to the campaign against drink-driving 20 years ago, along with plans for Home Office-sponsored crime and disorder partnerships to embrace alcohol strategies by this April. Hardly ground-breaking stuff.
But measures to control the price of drinking through either extra taxation or minimum prices – thus curbing cheap drink promotions – now seem off the agenda. Last month, in a revealing moment, the prime minister's official spokesman was put on the spot at a lobby briefing over comments in the Commons by health minister Ben Bradshaw. Bradshaw had announced that the government was considering legislation to outlaw cheap alcohol, with the possibility of a minimum price. But the PM's spokesman said that, as he was not aware of the context of Bradshaw's remarks, he did not wish to comment on them. Asked if the PM thought alcohol was being sold too cheaply, he replied that Brown believed these were ultimately decisions taken by commercial organisations. But stronger initiatives were apparently being considered to curb under-age drinking.
Gilmore, who chairs a recently formed Alcohol Health Alliance of 24 organisations, including a string of professional medical bodies, is determined to up the ante. 'We have never drunk more in living memory and alcohol has never been cheaper and we are certainly a long way from turning into a wine-supping continental culture,' he says.
Gilmore's arguments are compelling. Liver disease, fuelled by alcohol, is now the fifth most common form of death – alcoholic liver cirrhosis has risen by 95% since 2000 and is still rising. In addition, the 'catastrophic' impact of heavy drinking – rape, sexual assault, domestic and other violence, street disorder – now affects more innocent victims than passive smoking.
The alliance's conclusion, which is shared by many organisations, is that Britain is as far away as ever from a central tenet of the Licensing Act: namely that the liberalisation of drinking laws would lead to a relaxed mainland European style café culture. Gilmore maintains that the only way to curb consumption is by making drink more expensive by increasing alcohol taxes – a move said to be favoured by some in a despairing Department of Health. But the drinks industry rejects this and it seems that Downing Street has bought this line, whatever the PM said on taking office.
So what will the forthcoming review of the Act reveal? According to the DCMS, the exercise will involve a 'consolidated evaluation' from several departments, including the Home Office, which wants to clamp down on drink-fuelled violence and antisocial behaviour. Indeed, many now believe that the Home Office, rather than the DCMS, should assume control of licensing anyway. 'It's a very weak department – that's the root of the problem – and the Home Office is the natural home,' says the LGA's Milton, who is also leader of Westminster City Council, the country's largest licensing authority.
In truth, those who favoured a root-and-branch review of the Act will be disappointed. While there will be a tougher approach to alcohol abuse among young people, and harsher penalties for rowdy venues, longer opening hours will remain the norm. For most licensed premises, that has meant extending opening hours for a few hours – long enough to fuel rowdiness and antisocial behaviour in once-peaceful areas.
The problem for councils, charged with issuing licences and policing the Act, is that the standardised national fee they charge applicants fails to cover administration and inspection costs. After three years, the LGA says its member authorities have lost £100m. As a result, Milton maintains, enforcement is difficult for many authorities due to a shortage of inspectors. But he says a bigger problem is that few applications for extensions to opening hours are opposed because of a presumption in the Act to approve licences. Local residents often only hear – quite literally – late in the day because the council has not informed them of plans. Westminster is one of the few local authorities to write to all residents informing them of plans to extend hours (see panel). It also gives £30,000 annually to fund advocacy services in Citizens Advice Bureaux.
While supporters of liberalised licensing in the DCMS forlornly maintain that pubs now enjoy a more civilised drinking regime, the reality on the streets points in the opposite direction.
Recently, the chief constable of West Yorkshire, Sir Norman Bettison, took to patrolling central Leeds with his officers on a Saturday night. Shocked by his experience, he thundered: 'If anybody tries to tell you that 24-hour drinking will lead to the creation of a European café culture, send them on to the streets of Leeds. You won't find many people having a sensible conversation over an espresso. 'You won't believe the amount of vomit and urine I saw that evening.'
He blamed the new licensing laws for people drinking themselves to 'oblivion'.
Peter Hetherington writes on community affairs and regeneration
Go on, have another one
Although '24-hour drinking' became synonymous with the 2003 Licensing Act, which came into effect in 2005, only a small proportion of premises, mainly hotels, stay open for 24 hours. But as many residents of suburban England will attest — never mind those living in newly colonised city centres — the legislation can make life intolerable at weekends if you happen to live near a pub.
While critics of the new, liberalised drinking regime have long argued that the Act favours bar owners over residents, local people power can defeat the drinks industry — provided the council circulates all plans for extended opening hours.
Sir Simon Milton, chair of the Local Government Association, says the Act is so loaded against objectors that Westminster City Council, of which he is leader, writes to all residents affected by a particular application. Other authorities, such as the London Borough of Havering, take a similar view — and applications are sometimes turned down. Take Romford. Late last year it discovered that one pub, with a tendency to play loud music, had applied to extend hours to 12pm during the week and to 2pm at weekends.
When petitions began circulating, the council's local licensing board not only turned down the application but also insisted on tougher conditions. They ordered that an adjoining 'beer garden', frequented increasingly by smokers, should close one hour earlier at 10pm.
'People-power can work when residents protest strongly,' said one of the leading objectors. 'And I have to say, contrary to my earlier views, that the Act can work to the advantage of people provided they get off their backsides and mobilise.'
Councils have two concerns. First, because they have lost considerable sums implementing the Act and operating the new licensing regime — an estimated £100m so far — they lack the resources to monitor and regulate premises with extended hours. They may insist on tough conditions, such as those applied recently in Romford. But do they know that licensees are toeing the line? Some councils concede they do not.
Secondly, they have no powers to clamp down on cheap drink promotions — such as 'happy hours', 'two for one' offers and, more generously, free drinks in some electronic pub games. Some in the Department of Health would like a statutory minimum price. The Royal College of Physicians argues that alcohol has never been cheaper.
But the government is divided. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which pushed through the legislation, favours a more relaxed approach; the Home Office, concerned about antisocial behaviour, and the Department of Health believe the Act needs toughening up.
PFjan2008
