http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/story/0,8150,981303,00.html

Tenth defeat for 'draconian' licensing bill

Sarah Hall, political correspondent
Friday June 20, 2003
The Guardian

One of the government's flagship bills may never become law unless ministers back down after a vote in the House of Lords yesterday.

Opposition peers defeated the government for the 10th time over the controversial licensing bill, designed to liberalise drinking hours to create a more family-friendly drinking culture.

Since the bill began in the House of Lords, the government cannot impose the Parliament Act - a measure to override unruly peers and ensure a bill becomes law.

Instead, it looks set to become embroiled in an ungainly game of "ping-pong", with each chamber overturning the other's amendments. That "game" would - in practice - need to be over by the summer recess, in five weeks, to ensure the bill becomes law.

The risk of the bill being thrown out came as peers voted by 128 to 113 - a majority of 15 - to exempt small venues such as pubs from requiring entertainment licences for live music.

The Musicians' Union, which delivered a 110,000-signature petition to Downing Street this week, has been lobbying hard for the exemption, arguing that small venues will be deterred from holding gigs because of the additional "draconian" bureaucracy.

Peers sought to protect such venues by yesterday voting for the bill to exempt premises where live music is provided to an audience of less than 200 and where entertainment finishes before 11.30pm.

But the government insists that such an exemption is "seriously misguided" and risks public safety. Urging peers not to inflict a defeat, the culture minister Lord McIntosh told them their amendment "exposes the public and particularly children to great safety risks, leaves residents without a voice to protect against nuisance, and strips away the power of the police to control crime and disorder in vast swaths of venues, many of which may be totally unsuitable for the provision of entertainment."

But the Tory culture spokeswoman Lady Buscombe dismissed Lord McIntosh's arguments, saying safety aspects and noise control were already covered by existing legislation. "We have once again managed to defeat the government on this crucially important issue, which matters so much to the musicians and performers and whose contribution is so valuable to the social fabric of the country," she said.

For the Liberal Democrats, Lord Redesdale, a champion of folk music, said: "We're being robust about this because there are implications for human rights and for live music all over the country. It will be interesting to see what the government does with this in a situation of ping-pong. Will they give up now they have seen the degree of feeling?"

A spokesman for the Musicians' Union, Hamish Burchill, said: "Obviously we're very pleased about this but we know it's a long way from the end of the road." The bill will go back to the Commons next week and could be debated until the end of the year. That is unlikely since, if the bill does not go through by the end of July, it will need to incorporate a review of licensing in Wales. It would also not come into effect until after the next general election.

A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: "We are considering our position."

· The government was yesterday accused of having performed a "belated and humiliating climbdown" after amending the finance bill to ensure bingo players are not liable to the same level of tax as the rest of gambling industry.
The u-turn on an announcement made by the chancellor in the 2002 Budget came after the Conservatives threatened a national campaign targeting Britain's 3 million bingo players - many in Labour constituencies.
Yesterday Stephen O'Brien, the shadow paymaster general, said: "Labour only agreed to the requests of the Bingo Association, bingo players and the Conservatives after we threatened a national campaign."