Police fears about longer drinking hours are misguided and should be rebuffed

On Friday evening, many thousands of us will head out to Britain's pubs and clubs to welcome in the New Year. There will be much drinking to excess and, despite the mood of good cheer, there are likely to be outbreaks of violence. As usual, it will fall to the police to keep the peace among the throngs of revellers. It is safe to say that New Year's Eve is not the police force's favourite time of the year.

Sir John Stevens, the retiring Metropolitan Police Commissioner, fears that when our licensing laws are relaxed next year, life in Britain will come to resemble one long New Year's Eve. According to Sir John, thousands of binge-drinkers will stay up late into the night to exploit 24-hour pub opening. This, he argues, will cause an enormous headache for the forces of law and order. He worries that his officers will be called away from other duties to pacify drunken mobs. Sir John's advice to the Government is to think again before implementing this legislation.

The Commissioner is clearly justified in drawing attention to Britain's binge-drinking epidemic and the problems it poses to his officers. Anyone who has taken a stroll through a city centre late on a Friday or Saturday night will know that they become battlegrounds of alcoholic lawlessness. It is hardly surprising that the number of assaults on the police has risen in recent years.

Nor is it only police officers who are under threat. The damage that alcohol abuse does to people's health is staggering, yet compared with the frequent warnings we are given about the dangers of cocaine or ecstasy, we hear relatively little about it. People who would not dream of touching recreational drugs happily drink themselves to oblivion every weekend.

It is true that the drinks industry is a powerful lobby, and the millions it brings into the Exchequer each year undoubtedly gives it political leverage. But there is no reason to believe that this legislation has been passed solely as a favour to a rapacious industry that seeks to profit from our thirst for alcohol. Allowing people to drink when they choose does not automatically mean they will drink more. Scotland has benefited from extended opening hours without suffering social meltdown.

The hope is that the effect of liberalising opening hours across Britain will be the very reverse of Sir John's dismal forecast. The belief is that when customers can take their time over their drinks, they will be less inclined to down as much as they can just before closing time, and the "get-it-down-your-neck" culture should decline. Variable closing times, or none at all, should also mean that there is no mass ejection of drinkers from pubs at 11.30 each evening - something that creates flashpoints for violence.

We cannot help detecting a hint of sectional interest in Sir John's objections. The Commissioner seems to be saying that the police are still sorely over-stretched and will become more so. The intent of the legislation, however, is to reduce the strain on the police and the public from the malign effects of closing time. The police are also to be removed from the licensing process, which will also reduce their workload. In the end, though, legislation should not be weighed solely, or even mainly, according to its implications for the police. The fact is that the police are there to serve the public, not the other way round. If longer pub hours means that they must extend their rounds slightly, so be it.

Relaxing the licensing laws can, at best, help to diminish the problem of binge drinking in this country: the causes of this unattractive, and singularly British, phenomenon are too complex for any off-the-peg remedy. If longer drinking hours contribute to creating a more civilised atmosphere in our pubs, of the sort we enjoy in bars on the continent, this could, in time, encourage us to change our habits. Alcohol has become a national problem: heavy drinking is common in just about every social circle nowadays. Tackling it will not be easy, but this is a good place to start.