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The Licensing (Scotland) Bill: A Consultation on Liquor Licensing

Chapter 10
Children and Young People

The Nicholson and Daniels Reports

The Nicholson Report deals with two issues concerning children and young people:

• access to on-sale licensed premises
• sale and supply of alcohol

Access to Licensed Premises

The Nicholson Committee recognises and attempts to address the complicated provisions which currently regulate the access of under 18 year olds to licensed premises and which were supplemented in 1990 by the introduction of a system of children's certificates. Those certificates allow under-14s to enter a bar area to eat a meal when accompanied by an adult between 11am and 8pm. They seek to introduce a system which will allow young people to be introduced to alcohol in a controlled way and which will be of general benefit to family life and to tourism.

The Report proposes the removal of the current provisions. Instead, there should be a statutory presumption that under 18 year olds have a full right of access to licensed premises subject to restrictions set out in the operating plan. Premises may choose to opt-out. The Report also recommends the preparation of standard national licence conditions by the National Forum.

Sale and Supply of Alcohol to Under 18 Year Olds

The Nicholson Report recommends retention of the current prohibitions and of the existing provisions including allowing 16 and 17 year olds to purchase lower alcohol drinks for consumption with a meal with amendments to the list of drinks and extending this to all parts of a licensed premises, not just a bar area. The Report suggests amending the current anomaly which allows children as young as 5 to legally consume alcohol and whilst this might be appropriate in a domestic setting, suggests it should be prevented in licensed premises.

Both the Nicholson and Daniels Reports support the introduction of a national proof-of-age card. The Daniels Report also recommends Executive support for a no-proof no-sale initiative and is attracted to test purchasing.

Consultation Summary

33 of 63 responses opposed increased access by children to licensed premises. Concerns were raised by a wide range of organisations - licensed trade associations, ACPOS, Licensing Boards and health organisations. Those concerns focused on the inherent dangers in allowing children access to some premises which might be highly unsuitable and safeguarding their interests. There was general agreement on the approach to 16 and 17 year olds although the provision needs to be updated. The majority were also in agreement with proof-of-age cards with several in favour of test purchasing.

Our Approach

One of the fundamental principles of the new system will be the protection of children from harm. The system itself must be tested against the licensing principles including whether or not it can, as proposed, adequately deliver that protection for children. We need to protect children from environments which are wholly unsuitable and we need to prevent them being placed in a position where it is easy for them to circumvent the law and get hold of alcohol. The interests of our communities will not be served by allowing any relaxation of controls which will undermine our extensive efforts to combat under-age drinking.

We want pubs to become more child-friendly in Scotland and to encourage an environment where families can socialise safely together. However, we feel that this can best be done by requiring licensed premises to actively consider their suitability for children by 'opting in' to access to children rather than 'opting out'.

Under our proposals, all licensed premises will be affected, including off-sales premises. However, we do not wish to impose an unduly bureaucratic requirement on premises that have not previously been required to consider this issue. For those premises, the emphasis will be on a light touch with a simple opt-in procedure. This might, for example, amount to simply answering a suitable question on the licence application.

For other premises, we will need to be satisfied that suitable arrangements are in place for children. We therefore intend to develop a set of standard national conditions to be complied with where access for children is desired. We will again seek to ensure that there is a simple administrative means to 'opt in'. This can be done through operating plans. The standard conditions will be referred to the Expert Group for consideration.

On sale and supply to under-18s, we support the Nicholson approach of retaining the current controls, allowing 16 year olds to buy and consume certain low alcohol drinks for consumption with a meal but otherwise moving to make it illegal for children under 18 to consume alcohol on licensed premises.

We note the points made regarding proof-of-age cards and have indicated that we will support a no-proof no-sale initiative for off-sales in Scotland. We see this as helping to deliver protection for children within the new system and a means to support the majority of responsible retailers. We also intend to make it a standard licence condition that premises must operate a no-proof no-sale policy.

We see no reason to restrict this approach to off-sales and therefore propose to extend our approach on no-proof no-sale to all licensed premises.

We have indicated that the Lord Advocate will be exploring with stakeholders whether there is scope for extending test purchasing to alcohol in light of the tobacco test purchasing pilots.

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