As I write we await the outcome of the House of Lords investigation
into the workings of the Licensing Act 2003. One of the things they were
considering was whether ‘protecting and promoting public health’ should be
added as a fifth licensing objective. I don’t know what their Lordships will
conclude on this issue, although rumour has it they will not recommend this,
but that hasn’t stopped Public Health England (PHE) from publishing ‘Public
Health and Licensing Guidance’, subtitled ‘A simple guide for responding to
applications as a responsible authority.’ Directors of public health have been
included as Responsible Authorities under the Licensing Act since 2013, so many
in the ‘public health’ community may consider this guidance long overdue.
So, we have a guidance document consisting of some 27 sides of A4
which explains to local public health practitioners how to object to a licence
application based on one or more of the four existing licensing objectives,
notwithstanding that ‘public health’ isn’t one of them! As the document
explains on page 7:
“Although the licensing objectives do not include a health objective,
there is a health and wellbeing angle to each of them. It is also possible for
a Director of Public Health to have an independent and supporting role as a
responsible authority. The above provide some examples that do not cover the
full range of opportunities for public health involvement, but outline some
composite examples of actions that have been taken by responsible authorities
that directly draw on the connection of health to the existing objectives.”
The reference in the second sentence of the paragraph quoted to “the
above” refers to examples regarding how a director of public health might
smuggle in a health objection as an objection based on, say, public nuisance:
“…a representation requesting noise related conditions or objecting to
an extension of hours for an application using evidence on the health impacts
that sleep deficit can have on the local residents.”
Or evidence from:
“last drinks survey data, A&E and ambulance data indicating a high
number of alcohol poisoning cases coming from a particular premises, or from
within its near vicinity.”
You can see right here the difficulty in relating general evidence to
a particular application for a premises that hasn’t yet opened or had its hours
extended. You can also see that the implicit assumption of PHE is that local
directors of public health should be looking for reasons to object. In fact,
the guidance document proposes a traffic light system based on ‘red’ and
‘green’ applications. A ‘red’ application – one that would need to be looked at
with a view to making a representation – would include any application for:
·
Off licences
·
Any application for hours after midnight or
before 8 am
·
Anything within a cumulative impact policy
·
Night clubs
·
Premises reviews by other responsible
authorities
·
High volume or ‘vertical drinking’
establishments.
Whereas a ‘green’ application – one that would be of low concern to
public health – might include applications for:
·
Restaurants before midnight
·
Food venue before midnight
·
Theatre Bars before midnight
·
Changes to the Designated Premises Supervisor
·
Temporary Event Notices (TENs) as the Director
of Public Health does not have the remit to respond to these.
Clearly these benighted nannies don’t want the citizenry up and
drinking after midnight – and even then only in posh eateries or theatre bars –
but preferably not at all!
When your starting point is that it’s the availability of alcohol that
makes people drink it, and that population levels of consumption drive alcohol
harm, then it should come as no surprise that the starting point for directors
of public health in relation to any application for a new licence is “how can
we stop it?” the purpose of the traffic light system is merely to sift out
applications where an objection would stand little chance of success.
I hope that the House of Lords and the government will not introduce a
health licensing objective – much less a ‘health and wellbeing’ objective – and
if you read the PHE guidance document you will see how often that word is
insinuated into the text. The system we have works well as it is, and scarce
resources need to be directed at those who really are drinking at unhealthy and
damaging levels, not at making mischief through gratuitous objections to
individual licence applications based on an objection to beverage alcohol as
such, rather than any real local concerns.
Paul Chase
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