Violent Crime Reduction Bill

: I, too, support the amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) has tabled, particularly amendment No. 18. Alcohol disorder zones have the potential to be not only unfair but counter-productive in many ways. The unfairness has been dealt with in detail by other hon. Members, so I will not address it at length. However, the problem does not, as the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) suggested, stem from the fact it is difficult to isolate individual premises that supply the drink that makes someone drunk or pushes them beyond that point, causing them to come into conflict with the forces of law and order. The problem is that the Government are introducing proposals that financially penalise businesses that operate in the alcohol disorder zone, whatever they do, whether it is right or wrong. Under those circumstances, the burden of proof rests with the Government to demonstrate that all those businesses share the blame. There is a risk that the proposals will be counter-productive. In Committee, the Minister talked about various programmes and schemes, including the ““best bar none”” scheme, to which premises could subscribe. They could sign up to best practice proposals and do everything that the Government and the rest of society expected of them by refusing to serve people who were drunk, by behaving responsibly, and by operating their businesses in a way that minimised any disorder outside their premises, but they would still be liable for payment in an alcohol disorder zone. If that is the case, there is a danger that those businesses will simply throw up their hands and say, ““Why should I bother? Why should I sign up to all the schemes that the Government want me to join and still have to pay my money?””