John Penrose (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport; Weston-Super-Mare, Conservative)

It is a pleasure to have you here in the Chair looking after us this morning, Mr Scott.

I echo both sides of the Committee in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath and Lord Clement-Jones, who initiated the Bill at the other end of the corridor. The Bill is tremendously welcome, and I am delighted that it has had cross-party support in both Chambers of Parliament. It is greatly to everybody's credit that we can create such a level of cross-party unanimity to back up this important measure. I am delighted that it has been introduced, and I urge everybody to support it when we reach the end of our deliberations.

I want to address the issue that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath asked me to clarify in his response to questions from the hon. Member for Bristol East about noise control. I confirm that my right hon. Friend was entirely right about how the changes in the Bill will affect the previous legislation, and we are happy to reissue or provide any necessary guidance to make it clear how that can be used in future. I echo him in confirming that, as a result of the Bill, there will be plenty of ways for local communities and local licensing authorities to continue to exercise effective control via licence conditions, particularly for alcohol on premises.

In the very few or theoretical circumstances in which isolated licensed premises have grandfathered rights, which are unusual—we think there are few of those—a simple solution is to have a quick licence review, which local authorities do all the time, and that would also fix the problem. If problems arise, plenty of solutions and powers are still available to local communities, should they need them, to ensure that there are sufficient protections.

The Bill is a welcome and overdue step in the right direction. As everybody here is aware, the Government have been consulting on other proposals over the past few months. As an update, we have had about 1,400 responses to those proposals. They are somewhat wider than the measures we are debating today; many were extremely positive, but some legitimate concerns are being raised, and we will evaluate and address them carefully during our consideration of the consultation responses.

The fact, however, that wider potential amendments are out there should not distract from this being a sensible, contained Bill that moves us firmly in the right direction. I commend it to the Committee and add that the Government are very happy to support it as it stands.