Blitz Bureau
LIVERPOOL: Plans to change pub opening hours have caused a rift in the Labour Party a day after they were proposed at the party conference in Liverpool.
Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, vowed to “table an emergency resolution” to stop any motion that would see pubs close earlier.
It came after Andrew Gwynne, a Minister who is responsible for public health, suggested that “tightening up on some of the hours of operation” at pubs and bars should be considered as part of efforts to tackle alcohol abuse.
On September 24, McFadden ruled out any plans to change hours, hailing pubs as “a great part of the British tradition”.
“We’ve got a day left of the conference, and if that’s on the agenda I’m going to table an emergency resolution myself in order to make sure it doesn’t happen,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I think we’ve been clear about that overnight – the pub’s a great part of the British tradition, and we’ve got no plans to change the opening hours in that way.”
Speaking at the conference, Gwynne had said: “These are discussions that we have got to have – even if it’s just about tightening up on some of the hours of operation, particularly where there are concerns that people are drinking too much”.
The curtailment on pub licensing hours is under consideration alongside measures to target obesity, including pushing the food industry to reduce the fat, sugar and salt content of everyday foods.
Insisting Labour was “not the fun police” nor “supernanny”, Gwynne said the case for such measures was both moral and economic.
He said the state of Britain’s poor health was “morally reprehensible” and that “bluntly there isn’t enough money” for the NHS to cope with rising demand without such actions. But a spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “It is categorically untrue that the Government is considering changing alcohol licensing hours.”
