Whilst Kim Howell's words have no statutory weight, it seems to me that they should be taken into account when interpreting the Act, because they shed light on what was intended by the wording used when the Act was being drafted.

Ultimately it is up to a Court to interpret the Act, and they will look firstly at the language used and what it could be expected to mean in terms of usual everyday language, but having regard to definitions of particular terms in the Act and legal precedent from other cases. Nevertheless, Dr Howell's words do shed light on how the words were intended to be interpreted, and what the Act was intended to include and exclude, and should carry some weight insofar as they don't contradict the other meanings of the words used.

One question to ask the Licensing Authority is what Licensing Objectives they believe are being promoted by demanding the sessions are licensed. I suspect that any issues of noise or disturbance, for example, could either be dealt with by other legal measures, or shown from previous experience not to be a problem.

The Licensing Authority seems to be taking the view that everything should be licensed, which flies in the face of all the guidance and clarifications from the DCMS. By disregarding the guidance they put themselves on dangerous ground from a legal point of view, in my (unqualified) opinion. The problem is that no one is likely to risk the costs of testing this in a court.