Business and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-06
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Dominic Hubbard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I was drawn to this Bill when somebody pointed out there may be an error—or, rather, an omission—in the way the licensed premises are designed. If I read it correctly—the advantage of being elderly and long-sighted is that you actually can read when you are looking down at something—this is that premises licences are what we are talking about. Club premises licences, which most sports and social clubs have, do not seem to be in the mix. This means that a bar in a sports or social club, which is the main driver of this hub of social activity—or at least the financial driver that ensures what is going on—may well be excluded I ask—and we have two Ministers here, which is the advantage of being in the Chamber—if we have got this wrong, that is great, but could they let us know? If this is an error, can it be changed? We have the whole of Committee to go through and it is a small change. Can we make sure it is addressed? I see one Minister nodding and one looking concerned about looking at this to check it. I think we have all just scored a point in favour of having a physical House where you can interact, as opposed to having merely an exchange of monologues However, if we have that going, can we have a look at this? Sports clubs and so on are so important and are such an important deliverer, and this is how most of them are financed. It is an important factor. Can we check that and make sure that we get it right? If we do not, we will damage one of those bits of society which is already taking a pounding. Cricket has come back, but will we generate enough money for the juniors next year and for the season that is left? If there is ever a sport that is last back, it will be rugby union—why did I choose to play that sport all my life? Football, rugby league, hockey—anything that requires contact—will be slow to come back. If their bars are not working or not working at capacity, they will have another problem There are all sorts of schemes and you can bandy around the monetary figures, but if you have not made sure that they can sustain themselves in the way they did before, you will make a bigger problem for yourself, you will create holes in social provision, and you will miss out on something that is done by society for itself—the state has only to make sure that they can carry on functioning, not much more. I would have thought that the Liberal/Tory traditions could join in with that, and I am quite sure that the Labour Benches have no objection to it either. Can we make sure that that actually happens, have a look at this and make sure that it goes through Lastly, I do not know how many hours I have spent in this Chamber over the years talking about disability access. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, beat me to this. A buggy—it used to be called a pram—and a wheelchair usually require similar accessibility aspects. You will be making it easier for everyone if you make sure that the pavement is accessible for a person with either one of those two things, let alone luggage on wheels, which have now joined them. Make sure that the access is there, and you may well address many of the problems here. It is not the perfect solution, but it could be better by addressing and making sure that, if you have got it wrong, you change it, and if you have got it right, let people know.