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Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has raised some interesting and important questions, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. One of the questions in my mind, which Amendment 118 perhaps touches on, is how the Government’s proposal works alongside the present alcohol disorder zones, which, after all, local authorities have only just begun. There is possibly one in existence, but they have been barely used to date. Is it intended that this will be used alongside them? If so, how will that work? My worry is that we are trying to solve this problem with legislation and that it will not react well to legislation. There are many other ways of approaching this, some of which my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, touched on this afternoon. To burden the trade with more conditions would be reasonable if they solved the problem. As we have heard, the number of mandatory conditions is going up from two to nine—alongside the existing legislation, some of which was brought in only in 2007 under the Violent Crime Reduction Act—so I would be interested if the Minister can go into more detail on how they will work together.