Here is the relevant passage from that Mike Harding interview once more, for convenience:

Mike Harding: Roger Gall has emailed us to say, and I quote, "When you introduce this new licensing system, if pubs don't have an entertainment licence, will sessions and singarounds be banned?"

Kim Howells: Yes, I suppose they would be. The landlord would need to get an entertainments licence to cover himself or herself …

Mike Harding: But this is not for gain, is it, you were talking about

Kim Howells: Oh, I see, I am sorry, I'm sorry, I thought that you meant it would be professional musicians being paid …

Mike Harding: No, just sessions and singarounds, people just playing for their own fun.

Kim Howells: No, they certainly wouldn't and I'm very keen that we should make sure that that facility is there. There shouldn't be a problem. As long as money isn't changing hands, then there's no reason why they should have to have a licence.

Mike Harding: Right. Well, Keith Acheson writes in from Hertford to say how much he enjoys his singaround, singing songs of soldiering and seafaring, parting and ploughing, love and drink - he writes here - "No money changes hands, we enjoy some wonderful evenings. Why does English law criminalise this very English and harmless pastime?" I think you've already answered that - it does at the moment but you hopefully will make sure that it doesn't in future, is that right, the way I read it?

Kim Howells: Yes, absolutely.

"Yes, absolutely" - a clear and totally unambiguous promise, when you read the passage. No room whatsoever for him to suggest that he misunderstood the question, or that his answer was open to several interpretations.

And that promise can be met by his introducing a very simple additional exemption in the relevant section of the Act, and getting some favourable publicity in the process which will do him no harm as he slithers up the greasy pole of political preferment. I'd be willing to have a flutter on the possibility that this is precisely what he has in mind.

As for the idea that this is a way of getting significant cash for local authorities, the figures he quoted in today's broadcast certainly don't add up to that. In my pub if every pub were to have to pay the maximum £500 for a lifetime licence, and the maximum £100 each year to get it renewed, that would amount to around £15,000 once and for all, and an annual £3,000 per year. Not worth rolling over in bed for, for a council with a budget of millions of pounds.