The following from Hamish Birchall.

Next Wednesday, 13 October, the government will be asked by Lord Redesdale in the House of Lords to explain "...on what basis they have concluded that the United Kingdom has a flourishing music scene given a recent survey indicating that a majority of restaurants, hotels and public houses had had no live music in the previous twelve months."

On 25 August, licensing minister Richard Caborn had announced: "From the Beatles to Blur we have a live music heritage to be proud of. This survey shows that heritage is alive and well with a flourishing music scene - an estimated 1.7 million gigs were staged in the past year alone in bars, clubs and restaurants whose main business isn't putting on live music."

But this is about as credible as the government's claim, prior to the invasion of Iraq, that Saddam Hussein could deploy WMD within 45 minutes.

In fact the MORI survey to which Caborn referred found that the majority of such venues had no live music at all in the previous 12 months. The actual percentages for no live music were: 56% of pubs/inns, 58% of 'small clubs', 61% of hotels and 72% of restaurants/cafes. And, of nearly 1,600 venues surveyed, only 19% had put on live music two or more times a month.

But even the rather dismal 19% having two or more live gigs a month is probably much too high if you focus on bars, clubs and restaurants. The 19% statistic incorporates data for all venues, which include the categories where a majority had some live music in the previous year, i.e. Student Unions (91%), Clubs and Associations (70%), and Church Halls/Community Centres (68%). These venues raise the overall percentage of live performance. However, many gigs in these venues are likely to have been private and therefore inaccessible to the general public. The MORI data so far provided by DCMS does not identify private gigs (although it is safe to assume that most gigs in private members clubs were private), nor how many were 'two in a bar'