Home Office wants all pubs to accept new proof of age card
The Proof of Age Standards Scheme card, which has been issued five million times since it was introduced in 2003, has been re-designed so that a standardised card can be produced by any issuing authority.
At yesterday’s re-launch at Tiger, Tiger in central London Crime Prevention Minister Norman Baker said he was disappointed by the historic reluctance of some venues to accept a PASS card as proof of age.
He said: “What we have seen instead is young people bringing their passports or driving licences out with them for a night out. These are valuable documents and you don’t want to worry where your passport is at 3am.We need to get away from that because 51% of passports that are lost are lost by young people.
“We are keen to get a system that is user-friendly for young people and licensed premises. The PASS card has been standardised in a way that really leaves no objection whatsoever in my view to being accepted by pubs and clubs across the country.
Fairness
“My message to pubs and clubs is thank you for being careful about who you let into your premises but let’s be fair to young people too. Let’s make sure they are not bringing the proper card which demonstrates their age only to be refused by your door staff.
“I welcome the new PASS card and I am looking forward to hearing it has got 100% coverage before very long.”
Robert Humphreys, chairman of PASS, agreed that the group had faced a battle to get universal acceptance of the card.
He said: “We have had some discussions and following those we have embarked on a fantastic project to re-launch the card for over-18s. From now over-18s will be issuing a single card that will look identical save for the name of the issuing company.
“I am delighted at the result.”
Chief Constable Adrian Lee, the licensing lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers and Bill Butler, Security Industry Authority chief executive also spoke in support of the scheme.
For more details about the card go to www.pass-scheme.org.uk
