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At exactly the same time as the alcohol harm reduction strategy was being devised, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport was also working on a new licensing act, which would sweep away the statutory 11am to 11pm licensing hours. The Licensing Act 2003 has been portrayed in the media as paving the way for a 24-hour drinking culture. It won't, but it will result in change. Instead of there being set drinking times, local authorities will now be able to decide for themselves when pubs and bars can close. They could insist that they stick on 11pm - or let them go through to the small hours. It was hoped that by removing the 11pm chuck-out, we would all suddenly become relaxed southern Europeans. Out would go the desperation of last orders. The streets would not throng with beered-up boys looking for a punch up, but instead with gently tipsy young men holding clutch bags and giving their ladies roses. Or something like that.
But, as Hutchison says, that demands long-term cultural rather than legislative change. Shortly after the act was passed in July 2003, the club and vice unit of the Metropolitan Police produced a confidential assessment of its impact upon their work. It forecast a massive leap in violent crime. 'The flashpoints that traditionally occur between 11pm and 5am may be reduced in intensity,' the report said, 'but will occur with increased frequency.' More drunks out for longer would mean more fights, more rapes, more assaults on police.
Guidance on how to implement the licensing act was meant to be published in August of last year. Then the Met report was circulated and the brakes went on. The guidance didn't appear until this March, and the dates for the act's implementation keep being moved back. 'One suspicion is that the government hopes to move it all back far enough so that any rise in crime figures will not be seen until after the next general election,' says a source with knowledge of the process.
'If we get it wrong and end up with a 24-hour version of what we have now,' says chief constable Green, 'The social consequences will be horrendous. You would not find an official in the Home Office who does not agree with my views and, while I do not want to speak for him, I know the Home Secretary shares them too.' There has, he says, been a cross-departmental fudge between the Home Office, which is responsible for policing the night-time economy, and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which is responsible for licensing it. 'When I look at what comes out of the Home Office and out of the DCMS, it's clear to me they are not working together.' (Despite repeated requests, the government failed to put forward a minister to comment.)
In the meantime the onus goes back on to the industry where, eager not to be regulated by statute, the two great buzz words are now 'social responsibility'. Even a drinks behemoth such as Diageo - producers of every thing from Baileys and Bell's whisky to Red Stripe and Smirnoff - has its 'social responsibility' unit. I ask its head, Kate Blakely, why. 'People want to feel good about working here at Diageo,' she says. 'And being socially responsible is part of that.' But isn't it just a marketing position? 'That's highly cynical. I think people here genuinely care about the health of industry and the health of the consumer.'