Howells on Radio 1
10 February 2003

Why have you decided to change the laws regarding live music now and what will it entail how will it be different?

KH Can I tell you what the law is at the moment? You can have two musicians playing in bar, but you can't have three. It's called the two in a bar rule, that's what exists at the moment. It is an absurd law and we are going to get rid of it.

Say you wanted to open a pub or a night-club, something like that, It could happen to any of us. You would go along to the magistrate's court and you would apply for one and you would pay a fee for this, whatever it is? If you then want to put music on, you've then got two choices. If there is not more than two people involved, you do not have to have an entertainments licence.

If you want to have more than two people, so that's virtually any band that is playing now, you have got to have an entertainments licence. That's two and half thousand pounds please. And you have got to pay it, you have no choice, they set the fees and they can do it on an arbitrary level.

So what you will do from now on is you will go along to your local authority and ask for a premises licence. That is the licence to sell alcohol. That will last for the lifetime of the club, restaurant or whatever, that is a one-off payment

Every year from then on, you will have to pay £50 - £150 to cover all the inspections which happen anyway. So you don't have to pay any extra to put on music. We then control how much they can charge you as a fee and there will be a maximum and a minimum and they won't be allowed to charge any more than that.

Have you got any idea what the maximum is?

KH £50 - £150 that's it.

I think what possibly rubs a few people up the wrong way is, they see this as a little bit of an attack on live music and are also a little bit confused about who it will entail? Who is actually going to be affected by this and also the premises as well. John Ashley who runs a small record label in Manchester asks: if you use rehearsal space does the law require you to pay money for this?

KH I'm afraid disgracefully that is another scare that has been put around. If people are rehearsing in a room or a teacher is teaching piano let's say, in his or her home, they do not fall under this.

OK, let's clear up a couple of things. Does this cover paying performances or all performances, say in a pub?

KH No, it covers paying performances.

If you don't pay to get in do you need a licence?

KH No you will need a licence, just like you will now as things stand now, if you have more than two musicians in a pub.

Say no one knows Norman Cook's turning up in the boozer and I have two decks in the corner, do I need a licence?

KH Not if there is only one person in there.

So the two in a bar rule goes, but two decks are OK?

KH Yes laughs

Two decks is cool, OK. I think one of the reasons that people have seen this Bill and thought that this makes no sense, is for the sake of argument. Coldplay can play free in a church, because churches are exempt from this performance licence but Chris Martin couldn't get up in a pub and sing on a Friday night?

KH Yes he could certainly get up and he wouldn't require a licence on a Friday night. If however there were adverts all over town saying, come on over the pub, Chris Martin is on, then you would need a licence. So spontaneous music, in other words, people just suddenly playing a gig together, without any advertising, or not even word of mouth around the place, that's not covered. But if it's a ploy by the owner of the licence, to attract more customers, he needs a music licence.

So you believe this new live music law will help bands, rather tan hinder them?

KH Well, I hope so, I have no intention whatsoever in doing anything that's going to jeopardise live music or indeed new bands coming up. A lot of my colleagues in Parliament and in the country at large, don't realise that this is an industry that is probably worth a lot more than the steel industry is. Laughs   

Absolutely, we have an email here from Johnnie Gee who says that: given that Digby Jones Director general of the CBI feels that right now, it is especially important to stimulate British exports. And of course that the music industry is Britain's third biggest exporter, how does the Government justify a Licensing Bill that will suppress the grass-roots of an industry that relies on creative input from live music, in all its forms?

It also goes on to say that, if the Bill does become law, I would like to be the first person to invite the minister to an unlicensed performance of 'God save the Queen', outside Buckingham Palace. And by that I think he means the national Anthem rather not the Sex Pistols.

KH Well, he could play outside Buckingham Palace, they wouldn't need a licence for that.

There you go – you mentioned the Musicians' Union earlier on and this is from Hamish Birchall from the MU, who would like to know why televised sporting events, which can always generate more noise than acoustic performances, why aren't they included in this Bill?

KH Well he is quire right to ask that, because it looks a kind of unfair comparison I think. And the reason is that we don't want to extend licensing into anything that isn't licensed at the moment, and it isn't. We want to take licensing requirements off, not add them.

And it is why I worry and have worried a lot about the two in a bar rule. I don't want to be seen as a minister who imposes a licensing requirement on that. When I would really like to see, make it easier, in that sense not to have a licence on a small number of musicians. But the advice that we've got so far, and what the police say to us and everybody else is that this is the easiest way of doing it. Now I'll keep looking at it, and I can give you that pledge and if there is a better way through this then we will adopt it.

OK, well there is one or two people saying, couldn't you make acoustic performances exempt, they don't make music noise?

Yeah, I have been looking very hard at that actually as I cannot say that I've ever had a complaint, in fourteen years of being an MP from a folk group or anybody else playing acoustic music. But I've had lots of complaints from very loud televisions, very loud piped music, it is an unfairness, were have got to try and address, I think.

Would it be fair to say that you are still taking opinions and still formulating some of this?

KH Yeah, absolutely, and I've said all along that what we need is for people to be constructive it really. We don't need the kind of 'fibs' that were put out where people were told for example that if a postman was going on his rounds and he whistled every day that he would need a licence to whistle in the street. Or that you would need a licence to sing 'happy Birthday' to your grandmother, you know in a restaurant. That kind of stuff, doesn't really help anyone, and I hope that people really will be constructive about helping us form the best kind of legislation in the future.

I'm sure the MU will have something to say about that – but from us thanks very much for coming in.