Carol singing in a pub, or on the street - now that'd need a PEL too, if the law as it stands is applied. Unless they can claim it's a proper religious service, which is a bit tricky in most pubs.

There isn't a real reason for this - it's the unintended outcome of a change in the law brought in a few years ago which hadn't been thought through. Like many of the more stupid laws are. It maybe doesn't matter too much until people start enforcing them, and in too many places, that is what has been happening.

There's due to be a short debate about all this in the House of Commons on Wednesday this week. There's still time to fax your MP - all anyone in the UK needs to do is enter their post code and the text of what you want to say in this website, and the next thing the bugger's got this impressive looking letter in his in-tray from you.

Extract from an email from Hamish Birchall:"David Heath MP (Lib Dem, Somerton & Frome) has secured an adjournment debate on reform of public entertainment licences in the House of Commons on Wednesday 27 February: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmfbusi/20225a01.htm

This is, I believe, the first time PELs will be the subject of a timetabled House of Commons debate.

It was David Heath's question in the Commons on 3 December that provoked the now notorious comment by Junior Culture Minister, Dr Kim Howells: '...For a simple urban boy such as me, the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell...' !