Divide and rule in speech

Those who are looking for specific legislative detail in the speech that the Queen read out last week do not perhaps understand the way Government works.

The object of this announcement is to highlight the areas in which legislation is proposed, and the purposes for which it is intended. The details of that legislation, and the areas of activity that they will affect, are left for further debate and refinement.

So there is a long way, to judge from past experience, between the proposals that Her Majesty put forward and the detailed rules and regulations that might affect the way you sell alcohol and conduct your business. In between comes a great deal of work by civil servants to put the ideas into practice in terms that can be legislated. That is where, as I have remarked several times before, the real difficulties arise.

It is all very well to have in your mind, as some in the on-trade do, that it will be possible to put an immediate curb on supermarket discounting while leaving the pub trade alone. Given the structure of licensing at the present time, that may not be possible.

Remember that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet now. Your local Tesco has the same licence that you do, albeit with different conditions. If there are to be changes to the Licensing Act, then they are likely to affect all those who hold premises licences. The Act currently makes absolutely no differentiation between types of licence and it would be a complete shift in policy if it was made to do so.

There seems to me to be exactly the same level of targeting at the on-trade as the off, in these proposals. A ban on drinks promotions could cover a multitude of good marketing ideas, not just the offending "all-you-can-drink" type that has been the subject of criticism. Remember that legislation is a blunt instrument — it catches the innocent and unwary as well as the serial offender. Be very careful in supporting ideas to clobber one section of the trade, because it may well be that the very same law will affect you in some way as well.

Some of the proposals are mere window dressing. The idea of smaller-sized glasses has not really been analysed in terms of alcohol consumption and disorder — we are talking wine here. I am not aware that the lack of a 125ml glass has ever been pleaded as mitigation in the case of a drunken brawl, an assault or breaking a shop window!

Mandatory code​

But the concept of a mandatory code of practice for alcohol retailing opens up a whole new raft of conditions on licences — and wider scope for reviews of existing premises licences. Again, just because it is dressed up as a code of practice does not mask the obligatory nature of anything contained in it. If it is mandatory — a legal requirement — then breach of it constitutes either an offence or a reason for action by the police or the licensing authority. Given the "instant closure" mentality of the police in some areas, it could be that breach of the code will render you liable to shut up shop for the weekend.

The trade must guard against the knock-on effects of any of these proposals as they come out for consultation, even those that appear to be targeted at supermarkets and other traders. A concerted effort will be needed to counteract the more bizarre aspects of any code of practice, which the recent leaked document suggests could well be included. There is much work to be done in the next few months.