Here's an article from "The Times" dated 27 November:

May we sing a carol, please?
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent



IT MAY be the season of festive cheer, but for carol singers it could soon be a pretty bleak midwinter.
Under proposals outlined in the Queen's Speech, people taking to the streets with hymn books and collecting tins will have to inform their local authority, even if the singing is "conducted amongst people who know each other". The proposals would also apply to people collecting goods for church bazaars and those involved in one-off fundraising in pubs.

The Bill ostensibly aims to lighten the regulatory load on small fundraising events by reducing the number of organisations required to obtain a licence for collecting money. But the proposals, outlined in a consultation paper that will feed into the Bill, may have the opposite effect. Carol singing in places such as shopping malls already needs a licence, but the new rules would apply blanket regulations to all types of carol singing, even among people who know each other and for the benefit of a cause that they are all familiar with.

Carol singing has its origins in the canticles sung to accompany Nativity plays in the 13th century.

The songs were adopted and popularised by travelling singers or minstrels, who would change the words for the local people wherever they were travelling.