"Time Please" falls on deaf ears, Licensing Hours to be extended at midnight

2.15.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 24th Nov 2005

At midnight tonight the Licensing Act will introduce longer licensing hours for 80% of premises (15% or 30,000 more than the Government estimated) and 24 hour opening at 700 venues. The Liberal Democrats have been consistently opposed to the Licensing Act.

There's a problem though and it's getting worse.

• 15% national rise in "violent offences committed in connection with licensed

premises" in the last year to almost 1,000 a week.

• In England and Wales there was an increase by 18.4% in alcohol-related deaths in

2004 on 2003 figures.

• The overall cost of alcohol to society is up to £20bn.

Labour's Failure

• Delay: It took the Government seven years to develop their strategy on alcohol. In

that time, there were up to 240,000 alcohol-related deaths.

• Motivation: At the same time, Labour proposed longer licensing hours. Their motive

was not to tackle binge drinking but to garner youth vote, demonstrated by the eve of

election 2001 text message sent to thousands of young voters:

"couldn't give a XXXX 4 last orders? Vote Labour 4 extra time"

• International Evidence: Should they have scrutinised fully the international evidence

on the impact of longer opening hours on binge drinking, Labour would have found

that "in those countries with a well established binge drinking culture, increasing

access to alcohol has led to increased consumption."

Longer licensing hours in Perth (Western Australia), Iceland, Ireland and Canada

produced not a decrease in consumption, violence and drunkenness but an

increase.

Another research paper states: "past experience suggest that the new licensing

arrangements risk leading to a rise in heavy drinking, illicit drug use, violence,

morbidity and traffic accidents. The lack of attention the UK Government has

apparently devoted to the experience of other countries where on sale availability

has been extended is remarkable." (International Journal of Drug Policy, 'A "leap in

the dark?" )

• Enforcement: Under Labour, enforcement of alcohol-related offences has been

appalling. Only 11 landlords a year on average have been prosecuted for allowing

drunken or riotous behaviour on their premises and new powers to tackle binge

drinking added by the 2001 Criminal Justice Act have only led to one (unsuccessful)

prosecution.

Local parliamentary spokesman, Chris Took commented "whilst some of the measures in the Licensing Act 2003 (such as giving licensing responsibilities to local councils and enhancing police powers) are welcome, we must oppose increasing the availability of alcohol until binge drinking is under control."