Appendix 1

London Assembly Plenary Meeting: Thursday 7 June 2018

Transcript of Item 4 - London’s Night Time Economy, Question and Answer Session

Tony Arbour AM (Chairman): Now we go on to the main business of today, which is to ask questions of our guests about London’s night time economy.

The question-and-answer session will be divided into two parts. The Assembly will ask questions of Philip Kolvin QC, former Chair of the Night Time Commission, in the first part of the session. In the second part of the session, the Assembly will ask questions of Kate Nicholls, newly appointed Chair of the Night Time Commission, and Amy Lamé, Night Czar. Each session will start off with a leadoff question from me as Chairman. Up to two hours has been allowed for the overall session.

Welcome, Mr Kolvin.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Thank you, Chairman.

Tony Arbour AM (Chairman): You can make a statement and then I will give you the leadoff question.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): It is very kind of you to give me that latitude, Chairman, but I really am here just to answer questions by the Assembly Members and give them such assistance as I am able to give. I am not here with any agenda to push or any line to run. I am just laying myself open to questions from anyone who wants to ask them.

Tony Arbour AM (Chairman): Very brave. The leadoff question is this: what is your assessment of the Night Time Commission based on your tenure as Chair?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Chairman, from its first meeting in mid-October 2017 until the end of my tenure three months later, the Commission, which comprises 26 expert individuals from across the public, private and third sector, had made excellent progress and laid down firm foundations for its future work. It was meeting every two months, with a Steering Group meeting in the off month to plan the next Commission meeting. It was supported by a Data and Research Group drawn from the Commission, the ’s (GLA) Intelligence Unit, and exterior experts, whose activities included the definition and measurement of the night time economy in London and the development of a toolkit to help each borough to measure and track its own night time economies. It had commissioned and directed a consultation exercise of several hundred London organisations, a separate consultation of a representative sample of London citizens, and a third consultation open to everyone through Talk London, together with focus groups to inform the consultation exercise.

Now, running alongside this was the Night Time Economy Borough Champions Network, which comprised senior members and officers of all the London boroughs, which had met quarterly since March [2017] to share good practice across London, to learn about best practice from within London and elsewhere, including internationally, and to feed ideas up to the Commission and to act as a sounding board for the Commission.

The plan was to produce an independent report to the Mayor by July 2018 comprising three elements. Element one was advice as to the sustainable development of London’s night time economy, building on the

Mayor’s vision for the night time economy [From Good Night to Great Night: A Vision for London As A 24-Hour City, 2017], of which I was the principal author, and reconciling the growth agenda with the protection agenda.

Second was a data report, including analysis of the size and composition of the night time economy; and third was a good practice guide for the boroughs, incorporating best practice from London and internationally in the management of the night time economy, the data toolkit that I have just mentioned, and also best practice in the use of data to measure both the night time economy and, importantly, its externalities.

The Commission had laid the foundation to complete that work according to that plan in July 2018.

Tony Arbour AM (Chairman): Assembly Member Dismore?

Andrew Dismore AM: Thank you, Chairman. You have told us what you achieved in your time as Chair. The Mayor appointed you in January 2017 and you resigned in January 2018.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Yes.

Andrew Dismore AM: Did you jump or were you pushed?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): I did not actually resign, Assembly Member Dismore, to be absolutely accurate. I simply did not seek any extension or renewal of my 12-month contract, which was a quarter fulltime equivalent contract. I did not seek an extension.

The circumstances were that there were some concerns about the Night Time Commission, which I laid out in my resignation letter to the Mayor in January of this year [2018]. The concerns, in very brief, were the independence of the Night Time Commission; secondly, its administrative support; and thirdly, the public profiling of the Commission’s work. That is set out in great detail in that letter. I am not sure it is helpful to get into the detail, but I set those out as very clear concerns which were prerequisites for my continuation as Chair. I also said, if those concerns could be satisfied, I was very content to work for free. I was very passionate about the work.

Unfortunately, those concerns could not be resolved and were not resolved, and so the logical next step was for me to leave the job, which I have to say I enjoyed very much.

Andrew Dismore AM: We have seen you in your other capacities representing Uber drivers, a lap-dancing club in Sheffield and an expensive bar in York. You are also patron and past Chairman of the Institute of Licensing and you are on the board of the Night Time Industries Association. Whilst technically these other roles may not be a formal conflict of interest, they do raise eyebrows for some people. Was this a factor in you stepping down?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Absolutely not at all, no. Can I contextualise this? I am a barrister and barristers are subject to something called the ‘Cab Rank Rule’. That means that whoever comes and seeks my services, I am obliged to render those services.

In that guise, for example, you raised the question of lap-dancing. The legislation which covers lap-dancing in this country is the product of pro bono campaigning work that I did with feminist organisations to give local authorities greater control over whether and where lap-dancing clubs should be situated.

The fact that I act for this party or that party, I hope, is part of the attributes which I brought to the job. My clients comprise, for example, the Gambling Commission, the Security Industry Authority (SIA) and the Metropolitan Police [Service] (MPS). It is a question of who picks up the phone and seeks to secure my services. However, certainly it did not give rise in my mind - and I do not think in the Mayor’s mind - to any conflict.

My job at the GLA was to try to see all sides and to ensure that Londoners as a whole were able to fashion and formulate the future development of London’s night time economy. It was a role I took very seriously. I most certainly did not bring in any agenda on the part of any party whom I represent professionally.

Andrew Dismore AM: As I said, they do raise eyebrows. At last July’s [2017] [] Economy Committee, I suggested to you that “it is important that residents are properly represented, not just consulted, on the Commission”. You said, “I will take that as a takeaway from this meeting and I will take away your views and discuss it with colleagues”. Did you do so and with what outcome?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): I did do so, and the outcome was that we considered -- it was a very large Commission with 26 members, which I think you would agree is larger than most commissions which sit in in this country. That was so as to get a great diversity of views across the public, private and third sectors. They included, for example, the Chair of Licensing at Westminster City Council, who every day listens to the concerns of residents. They included Jan Hart, who is the Head of Public Protection at the London Borough of Islington and whose concerns are the protection of residents. They included Jo Negrini, Chief Executive of the London Borough of Croydon, who was there to advance the agenda for residents. They included Roy Smith of the MPS. They included Hannah Wadey [Chief Executive, Safer Business Network] of community safety. All of these people brought in perspectives from all the different aspects of public protection.

Had we had a resident or a residents’ association, where would it end? Would we have to have one from every borough? Would we have to have one from inner London and outer London and so on and so forth? Instead, we considered the best way of doing this was to consult Londoners as a whole while having a really diverse group within the Night Time Commission itself.

We did give that very serious consideration, Assembly Member Dismore, and I am sorry if our decision disappointed you.

Andrew Dismore AM: It is not a question of whether it disappointed me. It is a question of whether it disappoints residents who are affected by the night time economy.

When you stepped down, you stated - and you have just said so - that there was not enough done to raise public awareness of the Commission’s work. You have told us that meetings were meant to be held every two months, but only one meeting was held with you as the Chair in October last year [2017]. The minutes state, “Transparency is crucial to the work of the Commission”, but the meetings were not in public. They were closed meetings.

The question is: is that transparency? With closed meetings, maybe that also explains the lack of awareness by the public.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): How the meetings were held was not a matter for me. I was subject to the administrative organs which govern the administration of this building [City Hall].

If I can correct you - and I hope you do not mind - there were meetings of the Night Time Commission in October 2017. I said they were bimonthly. There was a further meeting in December 2017.

It was a matter of great concern to me that the minutes of those meetings should be published as soon as humanly possible on the GLA’s website. One of the issues for me, which I know was an issue for your Economy Committee as well, was what was happening with the production of minutes. The minutes of the December meeting, which I signed off in December were, I think, put on the GLA’s website a few days ago, and that characterised one of the concerns I had: that we were not being publicised in the way which ought to have been expected.

However, I certainly agree with you that when a commission is working for the good of London, then its work needs to be entirely transparent and the public needs to be fully involved. We were trying to stimulate a conversation amongst Londoners and, for that, we needed all the backing of the comms organisation within this building to make sure that our work got out there. That was the third concern which I raised with the Mayor: that I did not feel that enough was being done in that regard. I am quite sure that the message was taken on board and I hope that now the situation is rather different.

Caroline Russell AM: Mr Kolvin, I want to pick up a bit more on the work that you have been doing developing the Night Time Economy Borough Champions Network. You explained that the meetings involve senior people from all 32 boroughs plus the City of London, and it was about sharing good practice and ideas with the Commission.

Can you expand on what came out of those meetings, in particular what might a thriving night time - or rather evening - economy look like particularly in outer London? Also, can you go through some of the challenges?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Yes. Can I just for half a second elide my views with the views of the Borough Champions Network? There is a tendency within boroughs in London, within London and within the country as a whole for the words ‘night time economy’ to be used as dirty words. Interestingly, if you go to the United States, they do not they do not have a term ‘night time economy’. It just does not exist. It seems to be a peculiarly English term and it is synonymised with binge drinking and alcohol.

However, in fact, when you look at the night time economy, the night time economy consists of all sorts of goods and services which are crucial to London. It consists of retail, it consists of museums, it consists of galleries, it consists of performance. So much of what is great about London, that creative tension and creative friction produced by Londoners in their different sectors and their different parts of London, is crucial to the development of a great night time economy in London. The moment it is either seen as or becomes a youth-orientated, alcohol-driven monoculture, then we fail.

What we need to get towards - not just in Soho, not just in Covent Garden, not just in Shoreditch, but in every borough in this city - is a diverse night time economy which works for all people, whether they are old or young, rich or poor, gay or straight, black or white; whether they love alcohol or will not touch the stuff; whether they have all sorts of money to splash on theatre and opera and what-you-will or in fact whether they can only go out once a month and spend a few pounds. The duty of London boroughs and this building is to try to provide for all of those people. We need to broaden the conversation and try to create on every high street a night time economy which works for everybody.

Now, as part of that, when I talk about everybody, I mean those residents also who live nearby and who have to put up with the outpouring and the outfall of the night time economy, that which I call the ‘externality’.

You have to talk about the safety of people on London’s streets. You have to talk about the safety of workers. It would be a matter of huge concern to me if somebody working in the middle of the night in London could not get to work safely, could not get home safely, was not paid the London Living Wage, found that tips which were being generated through their qualities as a host or hostess were going into the wrong pocket, found that there was discrimination in the workplace and so on and so forth.

What we tried to do in the Borough Champions Network was to ensure that all of these themes were explored and to explore good models, for example, of the training of staff within London venues, to do with street guardianship, to do with the financing of the night time economy, and to do with building a diverse economy to ensure that these ideas were properly generated.

Caroline Russell AM: Can I just press you a bit more on the Borough Champions Network? This night time economy that you describe seems like an inclusive economy and one that takes on board the issues that Assembly Member Dismore was raising about the residents.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Absolutely, yes.

Caroline Russell AM: How will this Borough Champions Network help to make this real in the different boroughs?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): There were two routes or maybe even three routes for that to happen. The first is that borough A may have some marvellous practice. They may have a system of mediation to ensure the concerns of residents about a particular venue were resolved without having to go to review. One of the things we would do is to ensure that borough A, which operated such good practice, was able to tell all the other boroughs about what they were doing so as to disseminate good practice in that way.

Caroline Russell AM: OK. I am almost out of the amount of time I can give you and so --

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Ok. I am going to foreshorten this. The second aspect was to ensure that they learnt about international good practice, again, so that they could take it back to their boroughs as champions. The third was that when ideas were generated by the Network, they could be fed up to the Commission and then reported as good practice to the Mayor.

Caroline Russell AM: Fantastic. Just very finally, is there one lesson, very briefly, that you would give to the new Chair in terms of working with this institution? Just one thing and speedily, please.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): The one thing is that the Commission has to be given its legs.

Caroline Russell AM: OK. That is it.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): It is an independent commission; it must be allowed to be that.

Caroline Russell AM: OK. Thank you very much.

Tony Arbour AM (Chairman): Thank you very much. Assembly Member Hall?

Susan Hall AM: Good morning. The Mayor is alleged to be very supportive of the Night Time Commission. How many meetings did you have with him?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): I did not meet the Mayor or have any communication with him, oral or written, during my whole term of office, with the exception of a photo opportunity before I started in post.

Susan Hall AM: As is his way. OK. You have said that you were denied extra resource. Who stopped you getting extra resource? Who did you ask?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): I do not really wish to name names because the names are not here to answer for themselves, but when I came I had literally no resource. I then was given a part of one secretary in about April [2017], three months after I started. By May, I had raised this as a serious concern. As a consequence of that, a new person was due to start in post in February [2018] - this is the month after I resigned and nine months after I raised it as a serious concern - but, unfortunately, that person was not to be accountable to the Commission and we were not to be entitled to ask for any particular percentage of that person’s time, and so I could not see that that really resolved the concern which had exercised me in the 12 months I was here.

Susan Hall AM: It must have done because you cannot do your job properly. How many meetings did you have with Amy Lamé?

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Certainly a handful.

Susan Hall AM: All right. A year ago, you both told us that you had regular monthly meetings.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Yes. There was a programmed monthly meeting with myself and the Night Czar, the Director of Policy, and the Deputy Mayor for Culture [and Creative Industries].

Susan Hall AM: If it was programmed, that therefore does not mean that she was always there.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): I am struggling to remember - I am sorry - but it happened, I would say, in the majority of months.

Susan Hall AM: Fine. All right. I will leave it at that. Thank you.

Tony Arbour AM (Chairman): Thank you so much for coming, Mr Kolvin.

Philip Kolvin QC (Former Chair of the Night Time Commission): Thank you very much for having me.