WSTA warns reform to Licensing Act could increase retailers’ ‘burden’

The WSTA has warned that some of the changes to licensing proposed by a Lords committee might add “significant burdens” to retailers at a time when they were already dealing with a triple-whammy of increasing duty, business rates uncertainty and Brexit.

Today the House of Lords Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003 called for the scrapping of local authority licensing committees, arguing that the system had proved a “lottery” that was open to “scandalous misuses of the powers of elected local councillors”. It also called for minimum unit pricing on alcohol, a move strongly resisted by the drinks industry, who argue that it would penalize moderate drinkers.

The Lords committee published its intention to investigate the effectiveness of the 2003 Act for the first time in 11 years, arguing that the legislation had been party to a patchwork of frequent “piecemeal’” reforms and recommendation, leading it to become “fundamentally flawed”. The statute was originally designed to provide greater freedom to the hospitality and leisure industry, give more choice to consumers, and the authorities more powers to deal with misuses, but the chairman of the committee, Baroness McIntosh of Pickering, said that the legislation was due for a one-off “radical” overhaul to reform how it will operate in future.

WSTA chief executive Miles Beale said that while were some recommendations in the 168-page report published today that he supported – including the simplification of the licensing process, the scrapping the Late Night Levy and rejecting calls for further licensing objectives – he warned that a major overhaul and new regulations was “not sensible”.

“The recommendation of a major overhaul including a series of new licensing regulations that would add significant burdens and costs to retailers is not sensible,” he said – particularly after there have been so many incremental changes to the Act already.

“Specific recommendations around minimum pricing, a swath of new licensing restrictions and locally set fees would result in a significant additional cost to retailers and make the licensing system even more complex,” he argued.

Businesses were already dealing with “inflation busting rises in wine and spirits duty, the costly revaluation of business rates and the uncertainty of Brexit”, he continued, and the negative impact of these changes would “far outweigh any benefit the small number of positive changes would bring.”

However, Beale welcomed the Committee’s recommendation to streamline the licensing process and ensure councils take a more “integrated approach” to the licensing system by scrapping licensing committees and moving the responsibility to planning.

“However, we would want to ensure that the any system that abolishes Licensing Committees does not simply replace this with further complexity and burdens for responsible retailers already faced with significant licensing costs,” he added.

The Association of Convenience Stores also voiced its concern on the committee’s proposals to restrict alcohol promotions and siting booze in store. Chief executive James Lowman said these were “a blunt instrument that will harm all consumers, instead of targeting the minority that consume alcohol irresponsibly”.