The recent postings have led me to go back to the text of the Act with some interesting and encouraging insight, as well as some items that are obviously unresolved.

Section 136 makes it clear that noone commits an offence under this act by performing music (and several other things outside the immediate Mudcap scope). Offences relating to the performance of music are committed only by owners and supervisers of premises and in some circumstances by organisers of performances.

A different section specifies that private performances are not licensable unless either the premises owner makes the room available for a profit by leasing the room or an event organiser makes a personal profit out of surplus takings (I paraphrase the actual wording in that case).

A performance would certainly not be spontaneous if the owner had made a charge for the bar - but it is nowhere is it stated for spontaneous purposes that making available equates to making a charge as it does for the above case. The thinking appears to be the same but not the presentation. That might be a point to put to a friendly MP before the guidance is voted on.

There is a major difference between the PEL situation and the licencing conditions situation in the case of this Act:

The Licencing Authority can only apply conditions that result form adverse comments - admittedly the Local Authority is one of the commenting bodies for Public Health considerations and sometimes as the Fire Authority. Furthermore, they have to include a justificaiton for any condition that goes beyond the guidance. Finally, the applicant can appeal to the magistrates court against any condition in which the magistracy has the final say.

Richard Bridge, everyone will agree with you that the two in a bar rule was stupid and worse it was ambiguous in any circumstance other than a pub with one bar and only two musicians in an evening. Clarification and relaxation may well have been a worthy campaign during the last parliamentary session when the Bill was alive. Now it is past you have gone back to reminiscing over last years issues rather than concentrating on the way forward in the next few months, when making the act work in our favour is the only worthwhile game in town.

RichardP