Guidance on the licensing of late night refreshment

The Home Office has today issued guidance on the licensing of late night refreshment to reflect forthcoming changes to the Licensing Act 2003 made by the Deregulation Act 2015. As a reminder, the changes will allow Licensing Authorities to exempt supplies of late night refreshment:

• on or from premises which are wholly situated in a designated area;
• on or from premises which are of a designated description; or
• during a designated period (beginning no earlier than 23.00 and ending no later than 05.00).

This guidance, which can be found here, is not issued as part of the statutory guidance under section 182 of the 2003 Act but will be incorporated into the section 182 guidance when it is next updated.

In terms of the timescales of the changes, the covering note on the gov.uk website states: "The provisions in the Deregulation Act 2015 that this guidance covers came into force on 1 October 2015; however the changes will not come into effect in full until November 2015 when the regulations prescribing premises types come into force".

We will keep you updated.