I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for their comments on these amendments. I will run through them in turn.
Amendment No. 92 seeks to remove from local authorities the power to propose a variation to the geographical area covered by an ADZ, and to remove the power to make a new designation order to this effect, revoking the previous one. We want local authorities and the police to be obliged to think carefully before setting up an ADZ. I am sure that we all agree that that must be a first principle. That thorough consideration must include what the key geographical area should be. Noble Lords will have noted that I was careful to say that we expected the ADZs to be tightly drawn. That is obviously to be the case, but there is no point in setting up an ADZ simply to shift the problem half a mile down the road.
We would expect most ADZs to stay focused on the same area from beginning to end. However, we must allow for the circumstance of some unforeseen displacement. One must be realistic about that. Some other factor, perhaps as simple as a change in the management of several pubs in the same street just outside the zone, could end up being just as much of a problem as their neighbours, perhaps as little as 100 or 200 yards away.
The question of where to draw the boundary is always going to be difficult. Obviously, consultation will be important, but we must retain the power to vary ADZs because to do otherwise would have a serious limiting effect on local authorities and their ability to use ADZs effectively as part of a broader package of weapons for reducing alcohol-fuelled disorder. The factors are the need for flexibility, perhaps taking account of changes in management and, perhaps, some spin-off effect from displacement—which one can fairly accept might be an outcome.
Amendment No. 93, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, clearly explained, would terminate an ADZ a year after compulsory charging began. It would require the local authority and the police—not, I noted, the local chief officer of police—to go back to square one if they believed that the ADZ should continue. I can understand why the noble Lord has tabled the amendment, and agree that a year is quite a long time. In many cases, ADZs may well be lifted in a shorter time frame. The problem may well abate; the action may well have been effective; it may have done the job it was supposed to, and it would be right to bring it to a close. It would be surprising if more than a handful of ADZs lasted longer than a year, because that would suggest a somewhat larger, more persistent, problem.
There may, however, be some intractable areas where that is the case, where businesses are recalcitrant and even the stimulation of an ADZ is not having the desired impact. I would have thought that, if the scheme works as we see it working, that should not be a frequent occurrence, but there will be occasions when it is. For that reason I want to resist including a sunset clause of a year, which obliges going back to square one.
Amendment No. 94 would remove the power for the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out additional procedures to be followed relating to designating an area as an ADZ or revoking that order, presumably to give local authorities and the police less room for manoeuvre. We are as confident as we can be in advance of implementation that the procedures for designating an area as an ADZ and for revoking that designation are right. We will supplement those provisions with guidance on a range of the more detailed points. But however well prepared we are now, designations are bound to raise new issues over time. Some of them will be suitable for addressing in the guidance, but others should no doubt have the force of statute behind them. It is for those reasons that I resist the amendments, though I understand why the noble Lord wants to put a full stop on the operation of an ADZ, and why he wants to ensure that variations to ADZs are constrained. I hope that, having heard my remarks, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendments.
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Bassam of Brighton
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 17 May 2006.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Violent Crime Reduction Bill.
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