Thanks for producing evidence of a session which has been stopped by the legislation. This was of course a great concern while the bill was going through, but in practice it appears that most pubs which held sessions simply included music in their new licence application which they had to make anyway, when there would have been no additional cost. The difficulty arises with new venues which don't already have a licence for music, or with venues like the New Star which, for whatever reason, did not seek a music licence at the time.

The simplest solution is of course to make all small performances of unamplified music unregulated, and I this is of course what the latest proposals are intended to achieve. However as usual they appear so convoluted that one wonders whether they will in fact achieve this aim.

It occurs to me that a useful addition to the DCMS's guidance would be to consider whether licensing is necessary to achieve the licensing objectives set out in the Act. If a session is not causing nuisance, disturbance or a threat to public order, what is achieved by licensing it? There should be a presumption against requiring a licence, at least for small unamplified events.