Regulated Premises in UK Law

My Lords, if there is one principle which forms an integral part of the English law, it is that every member of a body engaged in a judicial proceeding must be able to act judicially; and it has been held over and over again that, if a member of such a body is subject to a bias (whether financial or other) in favour of or against either party to the dispute or is in such a position that a bias must be assumed, he ought not to take part in the decision or even to sit upon the tribunal.

I agree that the statutory expression is broad enough to cover the case where a freehold owner carries on the business of letting premises to tenants on the basis that the tenant will carry on licensable activities at the premises.

I should note that the guidance issued by the Secretary of State under section 182 of the Act states at paragraph 8.20 that in the case of public houses it would be easier for a tenant to demonstrate that it has carried on a business within section 16(1)(a) than it would be for a pub-owning company that does not itself carry on licensable activities.

The business has a capital value or goodwill only if the entity can be, and is, organised in a way that allows future cash flows to be capitalised. Nonetheless, it is clear on Strasbourg jurisprudence, now confirmed by high domestic authority, that A1P1 protects only "goodwill", as a form of asset with a monetary value, and does not protect an expected stream of future income which, for mainly organisational reasons, cannot be or is not capitalised.

It seems to me that if, as sometimes happens, the character of an estate as a whole or of a particular part of it gradually changes, a time will come when the purpose to which I have referred can no longer be achieved, for what was intended at first to be a residential area has become, either through express or tacit waiver of the covenants, substantially a commercial area.

As it seems to me, the answers to those questions are to be found in Henry LJ's judgment, explaining as it does the scheme of the legislation as a whole and the intended role within it of the SHC regime. During whatever hours of trading are permitted by the SHC the drinking must "on the whole" be ancillary to the provision of food and/or entertainment; an SHC should not be granted to an ordinary public house so as to turn it into a "late night pub."

Thus, like all points of construction, the meaning of this rent review clause depends upon the particular language used interpreted having regard to the context provided by the whole document and the matrix of the material surrounding circumstances, whilst recognising, therefore, that the particular language used will always be of paramount importance, it is proper and only sensible, when construing a rent review clause, to have in mind what normally is the commercial purpose of such a clause.