Business and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-06
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas Bourne (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on introducing the legislation with such clarity. I welcome it and I think it gives a much-needed adrenaline boost, as was noted by my right honourable friend Alok Sharma in the House of Commons. Principally, of course, it is helping the hospitality sector, which has suffered such a massive drop of some 90% in business because of the virus. It is right that we fast-track these pavement licences and that there is a reasonable fee but, like the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Low, and my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Holmes, I think we need to be very careful about access issues and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect access for the partially sighted, the blind, people in wheelchairs and so on. That is absolutely right Like others, I have some concerns relating to Clause 11 about off-sales, particularly late into the night. We know that drink and social distance do not mix. We should very much bear that in mind when we try to square the circle of opening up the economy while recognising the dangers that still exist from the virus; we ignore it at our peril. The British Beer and Pub Association has noted that 25% of pubs are still not able to reopen, even with one-metre social distancing, so encouraging the opening up of pavement licences is something I very much welcome The position on convenience stores appears a bit confused. The Association of Convenience Stores, which covers shops such as the Co-op, Nisa, Budgens, SPAR, petrol forecourts and lots of independent businesses, is not convinced that they are covered by this legislation. It seems to me that they are, in Clause 1(4)(b), but I hope that my noble friend Lord Howe will confirm that when he sums up. We should ensure that that is the case, because we need to be innovative and broaden our approach. We need to open up the economy. I share my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral’s welcome of today’s announcement of help for the arts, but note that we need a road map as well for continued regeneration of arts and culture venues, as we do for sports, as we just heard from my noble friend Lord Moynihan. I hope that is also something we can turn our attention to. I very much support what my noble friends Lord Wei and Lord Lucas said about the need for an innovative approach to try to regenerate and revitalise our town centres with drive-through cinemas and drive-through facilities, and to open up towns with more markets, food approaches and so on. We should look at that. We need to be innovative and to make sure that we really do get the economy humming again The legislation is welcome in many other ways: I very much welcome the flexibilities for the construction sector and for planning permission. They are very sensible, as is the flexibility for driving licences. We need to ensure that we fund our local authorities, considering the extra burden that they are taking on. We owe them that to ensure that we all go forward together. Subject to that, I very much welcome the legislation. It shows some imagination. We perhaps need to show even more imagination as we try to open up our economy and get it moving yet again.