---

Adjournment (Summer Recess)

Unlike my colleagues on the other Front Benches, I will not be able to respond to the debate, because I will have the pleasure of listening to it after I have spoken. I want to speak on three issues and, like others, to address constituents’ concerns; then I look forward to listening to the contributions of others. The three issues concern the licensing laws and how they are being implemented, planning policy guidance and how it applies to and impacts on my constituents, and finally, funding for the voluntary sector in the provision of health care services and the relationship with the NHS. I shall first deal with the temporary event notice, a mechanism that allows for the temporary licensing of premises. It was introduced in November 2005 under the Licensing Act 2003. Recently a number of my constituents contacted me after a local pub, the Angel in Angel Hill, started playing music in its garden into the early hours of the morning. Residents who had made representations to the local licensing authority to ensure that the pub’s licence restricted the playing of music outside at certain times were, not surprisingly, rather put out by the fact that it seemed that licence conditions were being broken. After further inquiries were made of the pub, the local council and the police, my constituents were told that the pub was operating under a temporary event notice, and that none of the normal conditions of the pub’s licence applied. The approach taken under the Act is referred to as ““light touch””, and the question is how that applies to personal licence holders. At the moment, they simply apply for a temporary event notice and make the council and police aware that they are doing so. There are no grounds for refusal by the council, and there is no mechanism for consultation with local people. In effect, it is a process of rubber-stamping. Today I want to focus on the administrative arrangements for that. The Government justify that light-touch approach with what they think are highly restrictive conditions applied to the use of TENs. The notices can take effect for only 96 hours at a time, and can be issued only 12 times in a calendar year for any one premises. The consultation undertaken by the Department stated that such notices were intended to apply primarily to representatives of schools or church groups. The TENs were a way of lightening the administrative load on them so that there was not so much paperwork. The problem is that that cosy picture does not really tally with my constituents’ experiences. The reality is that the notices are being used by pubs to avoid the conditions of their licenses. Figures from my local authority, the London borough of Sutton, show that nearly 25 per cent. of notices issued between November 2005 and June 2006 were issued to pubs, so the Angel is no isolated case. The simple fact is that the temporary event notice mechanism creates a loophole in the licensing laws that smart licensees use to get round the conditions imposed on them after public consultation. I do not blame the pub or its landlord for using the loophole; I blame the Government for not foreseeing that get-out clause in the new regime. As a result, for up to 48 days a year the licensing laws and the conditions set under them can be set aside and ignored. That is not light-touch licensing but soft-touch licensing, and action is required before the recess. I have spoken in this House about the problem of predatory developers who apply to build housing on back garden land. Residents in my constituency are running a campaign to protect back garden land from such developers and are asking the Government to change their advice in planning policy guidance. I strongly support that campaign. Current advice under PPG3 designates back garden lands, which is the"““area of land attached to a building””," as previously developed land. If the back gardens in my constituency and many others like it are designated brownfield land, it becomes ripe for development. Crucially, that designation fails to take account of factors such as the biodiversity offered by back gardens. A study undertaken by scientists at the university of Sheffield states that urban gardens are a significant source of biodiversity. In fact, their study found that in our gardens there are nearly as many plant species as the total number of native species of flora of the British Isles—that is not just plant species imported from elsewhere, but genuinely native plant species. Back gardens are an important lifeline for the diversity of our ecology. There is also the issue of the security of back garden land, and developers breaking into it and putting up flats undoubtedly undermines that. In my borough, between 1994 and 2004, an average of 46 new dwellings per hectare were built. That has significantly increased the number and density of homes in my constituency, and put pressure on local infrastructure. At a time when Sutton and East Surrey Water has obtained a drought order, the impact of all that increased development on water supplies cannot be overestimated. That is only one of a catalogue of problems caused by such overdevelopment. There are more cars on the road, more people trying to use local schools and health services, and a gradual decline in the architectural heritage of the area. Those are all problems springing directly from the designation of back gardens as brownfield sites. A planning system that fails to strike a proper balance between conservation and change is not fit for purpose. As a result, it is losing public support in my constituency. However, help is at hand, in the form of the private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), the Local Government and Planning (Parkland and Windfall Development) Bill, of which I am a sponsor. I hope that the Government will still find time in this Session to provide the protection that the Bill would give to back garden land by returning the designation to what it should be—not brownfield but greenfield land. My final contribution to the debate is about my concern for one of the valuable and well-regarded voluntary organisations in my constituency, which is losing some much needed funding. For four and a half years Age Concern in Sutton has run a hospital discharge scheme to support those leaving hospital. The scheme is aimed at people returning from hospital who are judged not to require personal care, and who are therefore not covered by social services care packages. The principal issue is eligibility, and how different authorities draw up eligibility criteria. The scheme co-ordinators visit the home of an individual leaving hospital to assess any financial, nutritional or safety needs, and take steps to ensure that those are met. Volunteers from the scheme then make weekly visits to the home of the discharged patients, helping with shopping, financial affairs and cleaning. Without this service, those people would have no support once they had left their hospital beds. Until recently the scheme was funded by a pooled arrangement between the Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust, the London borough of Sutton social services department, and the Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. However, earlier this year—I think this is driven by financial pressures—the Epsom and St. Helier NHS Trust began to question the value of the scheme, despite the clear support of patients who had benefited directly from it and health care professionals working for the trust. My hon. Friend makes an important point, which many hon. Members in the Chamber today will probably want to make, about the impact of budgetary pressures in the NHS leading to false economies and short-sighted decisions that result in a reduction in services, which will store up further costs for the NHS and lead to poor services being experienced by many of our constituents. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention and I look forward to hearing him expound on those points in greater detail if he catches the Deputy Speaker’s eye. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), too, will have the opportunity to detail the consequences for constituents of the difficult financial circumstances that many NHS organisations are grappling with. My point is about a voluntary organisation that is doing extremely good work, but which has been notified that its funding will be withdrawn in the course of this year. Without that organisation in place, hundreds of vulnerable people will leave hospital with no support, which will in turn increase pressure on hospital beds, because those people will not be able to leave hospital as promptly as the NHS increasingly wishes them to. There will also be an increase in emergency readmissions as a direct consequence. People who have been inappropriately and too hastily discharged will end up having to go back into hospital because their home was unsafe or ill suited, or because they were unable to get out to get the necessary food to provide themselves with a decent meal during their recovery and convalescence. All those matters will increase the direct cost to the NHS, which is why that decision by the local NHS is a false economy. It is a short-sighted approach, and it will lead to long-term costs and consequences. Adjournment debates such as this are an opportunity for all hon. Members to bring their constituents’ concerns to the House. Those are just three of mine, although I have many others that I would have welcomed the opportunity to air today. I end simply by wishing you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and all hon. Members a good summer recess, and I look forward to listening to the rest of the debate.