---

Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly indeed to this probing amendment in order to give the Minister the opportunity to clarify what he intends the interaction between discretionary and mandatory conditions to be. He said a little bit about this in response to my previous amendment but, as I have already made clear, we believe that local authorities and local communities should have more powers to involve themselves in the awarding and amending of licences in their area. The local authority is the appropriate place for such decisions to be made, given its knowledge of the area and the premises that such conditions will affect. Under what circumstances does the Minister intend mandatory conditions, which he said that under no circumstances would be removed from the Bill, to be made? Do the Government have a shortlist of mandatory conditions that they intend to impose quickly, with the discretionary power to be used only if local authorities feel that the mandatory conditions do not go far enough for their individual purposes? Or is it the other way around, with mandatory conditions to be used only if, in the Government’s mind, local authorities are not introducing discretionary conditions fast enough? It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, and I am trying to identify the difference between the two. I beg to move.