The following contains a few observations and a few questions, feel free to ask your MP to provide some answers to these. From a letter of 04/09/02 from Dr Howells to Rt Hon Chris Smith MP.
We recognise the importance of having a reliable definition of what constitutes a public performance and it is clear that if a musician or other performer is accepting money for a performance then it would be regarded as a public performance.
Why? To what possible end? This is a sad old argument used when local authorities had a cut, per head of public performances. They do not have to justify this now, they just have to make all public premises safe for the public, music or not.
Why does the Government still not accept that all public music making does not always take the form of a performance and that the issue is one of them making all public premises safe for what ever activities take place there, however the activities may be defined?
Why does all rewarded public music making present more concern to the public than an advertised live TV sports event, taking place on the same premises, which does not require the advanced local authority permission, if the issue is really one of protecting the public?
Why, just because the activity is rewarded, is it presenting more risk than if it was not, if the issue is really one of protecting the public?
Similarly, it can be argued that any performance by unpaid performers, which was publicised with the expectation of bringing in extra customers and consequently extra revenue to the licensee would meet the definition of public performance.
Why would the Government wish to argue such an abstract point if the issue is really one of protecting the public? Surely the whole point of the Bill is to finally settle such arguments.
Why enter in to such complicated and unnecessary matters at all, if the issue is really one of protecting the public?
How would it be established that the music making was not rewarded, or of what expectation was being made and what would ever satisfy the local authority of that fact?
Would it be the same dubious methods that are used under current legislation? That of the local authority putting aside the long established legal principle of the presumption of innocence by stating the activity is a (paid) public performance and then placing the onus on the licensee to go to Court to try and prove that it was no such thing? I suspect that it will.
For local authorities will (wrongly) argue that any music on commercial premises is for the sole reason of bringing extra revenue to the premises. But why should that be thought a surprising or a bad thing? They just can't give up on an old and a redundant argument, for the reward simply does not matter now. If the only issue here is really supposed to be protecting the public. The risks presented to the public by public music making must be the same, rewarded or not.
If a member of the public engaged in a spontaneous rendition of a song on the piano, inviting a sing-a-long [sic], it would not be considered public entertainment.
This type of activity is not in any danger from public entertainment licensing. For as it is not planned, no one will know it is happening and as it is a one-off activity, after it is over it would be too late and totally pointless to try and insist on a licence for it.
However, if it were repeated the following week and on a regular basis, it would lose the element of being spontaneous and by some strange logic, this piano sing-a-long would then become a public performance. It would become a public entertainment, which would automatically make the (licensed and controlled) premises unsafe for the public and be a criminal offence for the licensee to permit without the entertainment element of the new premises licence.
Why then, just because the same activity is not planned or rewarded, is it not considered to be public music making or considered as being public entertainment? As presumably it would be presenting exactly the same risks as if it were both planned and rewarded, why does the activity then not require the advanced local authority permission, if the issue is really one of protecting the public?
I must reiterate, however, that even where a performance is regarded as public, the main current deterrent of an exorbitantly set licensing fee would no longer be available and there should therefore be greater freedom for all musicians and singers.
These proposals have done away with the choice of the licensee to pay or not pay an additional fee to enable public entertainment. This by combining and increasing the overall fee for the mandatory liquor (premises) licence.
However, although the licensee will pay the same increased fee, they still have the option of providing or not providing entertainment. If they do not chose the entertainment option, as 95% have not done under the current PEL system, no live music will be able to take place on these premises, which may well have been perfectly suited and safe to stage this, without any conditions or additional alterations ever being required. Of course we will never know this, but will have just lost a perfectly suitable venue.
With all the resulting revenue from this increase in the combined fee level, do not the public have the right to expect that the Government have made all licensed premises safe for the public activities required, (including live music)?
Licensees should have the option whether to provide this or not, but should not have the option, as they will under these proposals, of having public premises that the local authority can later declare are automatically unsafe for the public. Obtained by the sheer nonsense of just by having one person making music and claiming that this is a public performance or a public entertainment.