Plan to extend pub hours for Golden Jubilee

By Caroline Davies

Proposals to relax licensing hours to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee next year were announced by the Home Office yesterday.

Publicans will be able to call time at 1am instead of 11pm on June 3 and 4, the 50th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne, if the plans go through. Mike O'Brien, the Home Office minister publishing the consultation document, said: "The national celebration of The Queen's Golden Jubilee next year and in particular on June 3 and 4 will be enjoyed in lots of different ways.

"No doubt some people will want to continue their celebrations at commercial events held in licensed premises and we want to give them the opportunity to do just that." The document also proposes extending New Year licensing hours by an extra two hours, following the success of the Millennium celebrations.

Tentative plans to allow round-the-clock drinking during the two-day Jubilee bank holiday were met with disapproval by Buckingham Palace, which fears that allowing public houses to open for 36 hours could lead to public drunkenness and so spoil the celebrations.

The proposals are among several being considered by ministers as part of the Government's attempts to cut down on red tape and bureaucracy. Opening the second reading debate on the Regulatory Reform Bill, Mo Mowlam, the Cabinet Office minister, said that the plans were among five new consultation documents issued yesterday concerning regulatory reform.

The others included plans to:

Simplify and speed up the procedures for renewing business leases;

Place local authority business tenants on the same footing with lease renewals as other business tenants;

Improve grant and loan arrangements for the renewal of private sector housing;

Allow amusement machine players to use bank notes and electronic "smart cards" for their games.