Free The Night’s response to the Minister’s statement on the independent review of the liquor licensing system in Northern Ireland

Today 19th November 2025, Northern Irish nightlife charity and advocacy group Free The Night has strongly condemned Communities Minister Gordon Lyons for rejecting the central recommendations of the University of Stirling’s Independent Review of Northern Ireland’s liquor licensing system, a review that cost the public £478,000 and has now been set aside in favour of private commercial interests. The Minister’s decision represents not only a waste of public funds, but a serious failure to address the longstanding structural issues that have damaged nightlife, cultural development and community wellbeing across Northern Ireland for decades.

The Stirling Review provided the most comprehensive and academically robust examination of the licensing framework in more than a generation. Through extensive consultation, it documented a system widely described by stakeholders as a “closed shop”, a “cartel”, and even “Dick Turpin without the mask.” Its findings highlighted systemic barriers to entry, anti-competitive practices, and deep structural flaws in the surrender principle, a mechanism that inflates licence prices, restricts market access, and entrenches monopolistic control. Despite the clarity and credibility of this evidence, the Minister has chosen to leave nearly every existing problem firmly in place.

The Minister has claimed that the Review lacked sufficient economic analysis, but this omission was a direct result of the Department’s own terms of reference. Economic modelling was never requested by the Department, and yet this is now being used as justification to disregard proposals based on extensive research, legal analysis, and international best practice.

Among the rejected recommendations was the proposal to streamline the occasional licensing system. Currently, organisers must rely on existing license holders, creating barriers for community groups, cultural organisations, and promoters. The proposed reforms aimed to eliminate this dependency, making it easier for new and diverse voices to host events and enrich Northern Ireland’s cultural landscape.

While the Minister claims to have partially accepted the recommendation for a new cultural licence, Free The Night refutes this. He has only committed to ‘exploring’ whether these objectives can be delivered within the current framework — a framework the Review has already shown to be inadequate. This falls far short of the Review’s clear call for a dedicated cultural licence and leaves grassroots organisers and cultural promoters exactly where they were before, with no meaningful new opportunities.

Equally concerning is the Minister’s refusal to reform the surrender principle, despite the Review identifying it as the root cause of inflated licence prices and restricted competition. The Review outlined multiple evidence-based policy options to address this structural problem, yet none have been adopted. By retaining the surrender system, the Minister has effectively endorsed a high-cost, exclusionary licensing market that prioritises incumbents over public interest.

The decision also fails to address the growing shift of surrendered pub licences into off-sales settings such as supermarkets and forecourts, a trend the Review linked to increased harm, poorer community outcomes and higher levels of  violence in affected communities.

Instead of relying on the transparent, peer-reviewed research commissioned by his own Department, the Minister has placed significant weight on submissions from private commercial interests, including Hospitality Ulster. Free The Night submitted a Freedom of Information request seeking access to the material these groups provided to the Review, but the Department refused disclosure on the grounds of commercial sensitivity. This means that the lobbying input used to justify rejecting key recommendations cannot be publicly scrutinised, in stark contrast to the openness of the Independent Review itself. The Review explicitly warned that future licensing bodies must avoid undue influence from business interests, recognising the risk that commercial lobbying can distort public-interest decision-making.

After dismissing the proposal for a Northern Ireland Licensing Authority, the Minister provided no credible alternative for implementing reform. Free The Night maintains that if a central licensing body is not created, local councils should be empowered to make licensing decisions, as they possess the closest understanding of community need, safety considerations and local cultural priorities.

Speaking today, Free The Night’s Co-Founder Holly Lester said:

“We are incredibly disappointed with the Minister’s response to the Independent Licensing Review recommendations. This is a missed opportunity that could have significantly benefitted nightlife in Northern Ireland, particularly our creative community. The proposed changes had the potential to address our lack of venue space and make it easier to run pop-up events and festivals. In turn, this could have helped reverse the concerning trend of creative drain in Northern Ireland, where we are losing our creative talent en masse to other cities in the UK and Europe. The Minister is aware of these issues, yet has chosen to ignore them, seemingly prioritising the views of business lobbying groups instead.”

Holly continued:

“Given the Minister’s refusal to act, Free The Night will now begin the process of raising these issues with the Competition and Markets Authority and other regulators.

Free The Night will continue working with communities, councils, academic experts and elected representatives to deliver the reforms the public paid for and the Review clearly called for. If the Department will not act, we will.”