Antisocial Behaviour

: My hon. and learned Friend makes an extremely important point. Anyone involved in the commercial side of the drinks industry who takes such a public-spirited stand deserves our plaudits. I was struck by the evidence that the Committee heard—the Chairman of the Committee referred to it—from Professor Hobbs of Durham university and the chief constable of Nottinghamshire. Professor Hobbs gave us a very important economic analysis of alcohol-related disorder and the growth of the night-time economy since the 1980s. As he made clear, that economy is a very large and growing business. He says:"““This economic boom has been accompanied by a rise in violence and disorder. In every research site across the country . . . it was found that violence and disorder was exacerbated in direct proportion to the number of drinkers coming into the town or city. Further, we were able to trace the spread of violence and disorder that accompanied the development of new drinking circuits adjacent to established drinking routes.””" As the hon. Gentleman said, there is a tradition in England—I do not know the position so well in other parts of the United Kingdom—of young people consuming alcohol on Friday and Saturday nights. I was staggered by some of the evidence that we heard of the scale of drinking today. The evidence that we took from the chief constable of Nottinghamshire is that drinking in places such as Nottingham and, I suspect, Manchester is on a quite different scale from the drinking of the past. That is not to say that there has not always been a tradition of hard drinking in some of our city centres. There is the film, ““Saturday Night and Sunday Morning””, for example. There has certainly been drinking in our city centres for 40 or 50 years, but I suspect that it was not on the scale of the drinking of today. I was staggered when the chief constable, who gave evidence to us about a year ago in the run-up to Christmas, told us that 80,000 to 100,000 young people would be out on the streets on a Friday night in a city the size of Nottingham. Nottingham has a licensed capacity for more than 100,000 people. That is a huge number of young people to have out on the streets. Given the scale of the numbers of people consuming alcohol, there is bound to be disorder. We know that the problem is not confined to Nottingham or our city centres. That fair point has already been made. This is a major social development throughout the country. The atmosphere in our provincial cities of any size—it is not so apparent in London—changes after about 7 o'clock, particularly on a Friday night but also on a Saturday night. It is quite unusual to find many people over the age of 30 in those city centres after 7 o'clock on a Friday or a Saturday night. Generally, it is groups of young people going from bar to bar simply drinking the evening away. That is the picture in our great provincial cities. The later it gets in the evening, the more drink has been consumed, the more tense the atmosphere often becomes. We must recognise the fact that this is a social and economic development that has intensified in the past 15 to 20 years, and we need new thinking about how we will address this problem. The Committee was struck by the fact that the Government's response to alcohol-related disorder is currently founded on an assumption that the problem can be defined by, and traced to, irresponsible individuals and individual premises. That sort of thinking certainly has a role to play; that the irresponsible individuals who consume the alcohol and those irresponsible premises that sell the alcohol to them must face the consequences. I do not disagree with that approach, but this is a very big phenomenon and more than that is required. There needs to be a more wide-ranging response to this problem. There needs to be a recognition of what has taken place, followed by thinking on a much bigger scale than there has been before to address it, including going back to the planning stage—looking at the planning of our city centres—and looking as well at the provisions that need to be made to accommodate such large numbers of people drinking on Friday and Saturday nights, particularly in respect of transport and toilet facilities. In short, what is needed is a much more thorough and wide-ranging approach than there has been before. That brings me on to the conclusions of the Committee, which I support. I ask the Government to take them into account, particularly paragraph 296, where we say:"““Unless it becomes clear that alcohol-related disorder is being reduced to a really significant extent, we believe that we should ask whether the Government should be so reliant on its emphasis on the role of individuals.””" The issue is all the more important in light of the changes introduced by the Licensing Act 2003. It is probably too early to say exactly what the consequences of that will be, but, given the existing situation, there should be very careful monitoring of what is taking place. I hope that the Government will take that to heart, and look carefully at how they are evaluating those changes and what effects they are having on this already significant phenomenon that takes place on weekend evenings in our great cities. It is tempting to say, ““Young people have always enjoyed a drink,”” but this phenomenon is much bigger than in the past. It is reflected in university life today and, in the way I have described, in our provincial city centres and smaller centres throughout the country. Of course, many people go out and enjoy themselves without causing any trouble at all, and people should have the right to go out for a drink. But a deep-seated phenomenon is taking place, and there needs to be some wide-ranging thinking about it so that we can address the problems that are arising from it.