As was pointed out, fees for the Premises Licence will now be in many more places than just pubs, so there will be more premises paying the one off fee for the life of the business, plus also paying the above inspection charge every year. There will be more money overall.

As I said numbers are not my thing but is it not about time we knew the real figures and how and why the regional variations and bands are arrived at?

There is still a lot of difference between £50 and £100 and this is not the fee but just the annual inspection charge.

But if you take a basic pub, currently paying £30 annually and providing no entertainment, all these in England and Wales will be paying £20 more or £70 more than now. And for what? Can this annual inspection charge be justified? The current licensee of the New Star will not be carrying on and I wonder how many more of the smaller pubs we are set to lose? This is without paying for any alterations to enable entertainment.

Then there is the additional money from all the new personal licenses, which last ten years.

Whilst I accept that individual authorities will not be receiving the current PEL revenue from the few premises that have to pay very hig fees, and that is a good thing, there is still being created overall, a pretty large finicial bovine.

Plus the small pubs providing no (conventional) entertainment and perhaps not able to, and who are finacially stretched, would seem to be paying more and subsidising the larger ones, which can provide entertainment and who may be paying less? Until we know how the bands are set, it will not be possible to decide.