We’d drink to the departure of Amy Lame, but all the pubs are shut

Good riddance to Amy Lame, Sadiq Khan’s useless ‘night czar’ who did nothing to tackle the regulation strangling London’s pubs, bars and nightclubs, writes Elliot Keck

The United States has been responsible for furnishing us with many of the most iconic soundbites for free-market and small state advocates. Milton Friedman’s “nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme” and Ronald Reagan’s contention that the most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” both spring to mind.

Unfortunately the United States has also given us one of the most useless bureaucrats in recent times. At least relative to their gross pay. I’m talking, of course, about Amy Lame, the Mayor of London’s night czar, who has announced that she is standing down from her post after a long, but very well remunerated, eight years.

And what did she achieve? Well, in a statement the Mayor’s office said that she was “instrumental in reopening Fabric, protecting the 100 Club, securing the future of Printworks, securing the reopening of the Black Cap after 10 years of closure, and enabling Drumsheds to open, amongst others”. How does that compare though with the 3,011 pubs, bars, and nightclubs that have closed across London since March 2020, according to the Night Time Industries Association?

Reagan was right, we should want government to be less involved in our lives and our industries. Perhaps Amy Lame took those words to heart, recognising that the less she was involved the better. Although that wouldn’t excuse the hundreds of thousands of pounds she took from taxpayers (much of it paid through a limited company to reduce her tax liabilities).

Perhaps Lame realised that the less she was involved, the better

But the precise problem with nightlife in London is the overwhelming extent of government interference. And Amy Lame, along with the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, had the influence needed to help ease the enormous burdens placed on businesses and consumers, particularly by local government. 

London’s failing nightlife

The reasons behind London’s stuttering nightlife, as identified by the Adam Smith Institute, is the sky-high rates of alcohol duty and the absurdly restrictive planning and licencing laws that give local authorities, and their Nimby residents, significant powers over things like opening times, noise restrictions and so on – as well as the powers to restrict new housing developments, driving up house prices and reducing disposable income. 

Now many of the solutions weren’t in the gift of Amy Lame. But did she or the Mayor ever lobby ministers to reduce alcohol duty? When Hackney Council reduced opening hours for businesses, or Westminster council withdrew pavement licences from premises in Soho following the pandemic, did Lame and her office impose all the pressure that it could? Did she suggest to her boss that he might accelerate his house-building programme a little? 

And when in July it became clear that England would reach the Euros, why did we end up in the embarrassing situation where the Metropolitan Police posted on X “please remember there are no outdoor screens showing the #EURO2024 final in central London”?

Perhaps I’m being unfair. After all the propensity for London councils to crush nightlife in their boroughs is real. One of Lame’s proclaimed successes was her work to keep the nightclub Fabric open. The initial closure of the venue wasn’t because it wasn’t profitable – it has been consistently ranked as one of the world’s best night clubs for many years. Instead it was because Islington Council revoked its licence. But that speaks to the crux of the issue: it is government that is the problem and local government specifically. If Lame wanted to turn London into a 24-hour city, her task was to take on the town halls that made that an impossibility. That she did not do. Instead she was focused on setting up ‘Night Time Enterprise Zones’. In Bromley this meant a series of events including “a silent disco, street food, sports and wellbeing and interactive light displays”. Gimmicks, basically. 

Ahead of the latest financial year, Amy Lame received a pay rise of 40 per cent to almost £120,000. What were the expectations placed on her? Well when I asked the Greater London Authority for her key performance indicators in that year, the results were embarrassing. She had just one in 2023-24 – the “number of businesses supported through the 24 hour economy programme”. For anyone out in London over the coming weeks and months after 11pm, have a look round and see the evidence of that support. You’ll struggle to find it. Let’s hope that the position of night czar is only a temporary one. At least then it will save taxpayers a bit of cash they can spend at the local pub before it closes.

Elliot Keck is head of campaigns at the Taxpayers’ Alliance