IAS debunks Home Office Millennium Claims

The Home Office's plans for a mammoth millennium booze-up have been challenged by the Institute of Alcohol Studies. (IAS)

The intention is to allow for 36 hours drinking as the world marks the passing of 2,000 years of the Christian Era and to establish this as the practice on every subsequent New Year's Eve. In its submission to the Home Office, the IAS states that it has no basic objection to extended drinking hours on the eve of the Millennium and subsequent New Year's Eves, "provided civic disruption can be avoided and public services maintained."

The IAS is challenging the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, and the Secretary of State for Health, Frank Dobson, to provide assurances the proposals will not put undue strain on public services.

As they stand, says the IAS, the measures are against the public interest.

The document forcibly points out that "no convincing case has been made out for the present proposals, and that it is unwise to impose all night extensions of drinking hours on local communities." The IAS also argues that the system of restriction orders proposed will prove to be inadequate.

As we reported in (Alert Number 3, 1998), the Home Office's Consultation Paper states that every New Year's Eve tens of thousands of licensees seek extensions to permitted hours, and that for the eve of the new Millennium the expectation is that virtually all licensed outlets will apply for extended hours. The Consultation Paper claims that processing such a large number of applications would place a huge burden on the courts and the police as well as on the licensed trade. In reply to the Home Office, the IAS refutes both of these claims. Firstly, the picture of magistrates' courts brought to a standstill by an avalanche of applications is a false one since "licensing committees can decide policy on late night extensions for Christmas and New Year at the annual licensing meeting. There is nothing to stop them granting all night relaxations if they consider them appropriate. It is true that individual applications for extensions must be made, but we understand that where these conform to an already agreed general policy, processing them is a formality which does not amount to an undue burden... Any burden on the licensed trade is presumably small compared with the benefits of being granted extended hours."

The IAS submission says that "the reasons for the measure given [by the Home Office] are clearly bogus." It argues that the Government's real intention is to deny local licensing committees the discretion to grant all night relaxations. This is no doubt because some committees may not consider them desirable. The IAS calls on the Government to be honest about its apparent wish to deny discretion to licensing committees.

The submission highlights the irony that "it is by no means certain that virtually all licensed outlets will seek all night extensions for Millennium Eve." Some large brewers and other retailers, citing 'crippling staff costs and the threat of damage and violence posed by drunken revellers', have already stated that they may well keep their premises closed on 31st December/1st January, while other premises will close before midnight. If a significant proportion of licensed premises do not open on Millennium Eve, there will be extra pressures on those that do with additional problems on the streets. "It even more important," says the IAS, " that through licensing committees, local communities retain control of the situation."

Moving on to the problem of public order, the IAS argues that "contrary to the mythology presently being constructed by the media, vested interests, and some politicians" there is plenty of evidence that extended or de-regulated night-time drinking hours have inherent dangers. They "tend to increase crime, disorder, and related problems...These problems can be considerably more serious than the 'noise and nuisance' referred to in the Consultation paper." Experience in Scotland, New Zealand, and Perth, Western Australia, supports this view. It was the increasing incidence of social disturbance in Scotland, following de facto de-regulation of closing times, that prompted the Scottish Office to demand better control of extended drinking hours in the late 1980s.

The Institute emphatically states that "no grounds whatever are provided for believing that previous experience in the UK and elsewhere will not be repeated, and that 36 hours continuous drinking hours will not have adverse effects."

The Home Office Consultation Paper ignores the likely impact of extended drinking hours on public services other than passing references to the police whose resources are going to be stretched to the limit on the Eve of the Millennium. Jack Straw himself has stated that "all the problems of policing a typical New Year's Eve are likely to be multiplied several times" and that "New Year's Eve 1999 will test police forces to the full". In this context, it is reported that the Millennium Eve overtime bill for the Metropolitan Police alone is expected to be £12 million. This, presumably, is hugely more than the financial savings derived from not having to deal individually with each application for extended drinking hours.

The same problems apply to the hospital service, especially accident and emergency (see Alert, Number 3, 1998). The burden of alcohol abuse on A & E departments is already large and disruptive in normal circumstances, especially at nights and at weekends. The NHS Executive is worried that any problems caused by the Millennium Bug will occur when the NHS is also struggling to cope with staff shortages and the unprecedented pressures and demand over the millennium celebration period.

The nearest the Consultation Paper gets to discussing these issues is in the proposal to provide a system of restriction orders. "Unfortunately," the IAS says, "the social ills against which restriction orders are seen as a protection are defined far too narrowly in terms of noise and disturbance to local residents...It is possible that restriction orders may help to prevent problems of that kind, but it is difficult to see how they would provide a solution to the broader problems of civic disruption, possibly involving thousands of people milling around town and city centres, including non-residential areas."

The tone of the Consultation Paper implies that the Government is convinced that its proposals will not result in additional disturbances on the streets or seriously ill people not being cared for properly in Accident and Emergency Departments because of drunken revellers putting undue strain on the system. The IAS calls on the Government "to publish the information, evidence, and advice on which it has arrived at these confident conclusions. In view of the possible impact on the health service, this should be done by means of statements by the Secretary of State for Health as well as the Home Secretary."

Even with such assurances, however, the IAS does "not believe that the proposed system of restriction orders will be adequate to control the potential problems...Helping to make proper arrangements for extended drinking hours on New Year's Eves should be one of the tasks of the local partnerships against crime...but which are ignored totally in the present proposals...NHS Health Trusts should be able to have their views taken into account by the licensing justices."

The Institute of Alcohol Studies' submission undermines some of the basic premises of the Home Office's proposals. Unless Jack Straw is able to provide the assurances sought, the Government needs to abandon the idea of its marathon binge to welcome the new Millennium.