If you're a drummer, that's a back beat, or swing.

Incidentally I just sent this to my allocated 6 Lords

Fax From Performer Lawyer Group
care of: - MacDonald Bridge, Solicitors
Forge House, High Street, Lower Stoke, Nr. Rochester, Kent ME3 9RD
Tel: 01634 27 27 20 Fax: 01634 27 27 21 Email: McLaw @btinternet.com


If this fax is not clear or complete, please telephone.


TO:                                        FAX NO:        020 7219 5979
FROM:        RICHARD McD. BRIDGE                DATE:                3rd July 2003
NUMBER OF PAGES (INC.)        2.

Dear         Licensing Bill - URGENT

I write as briefly as possible.

It is imperative for the survival of folk music, folk dance, and small-scale musical events generally, that the government amended or original versions of Commons amendment 62B are rejected. These drafts require premises to have a licence for entertainment before they can benefit from the relaxation of restrictions imposed by the licence. But in most cases, the conditions will have required capital expenditure – double glazing, new lavatories, "crush bars", air conditioning, all to the standards required for full scale events. Therefore the preponderance of places that at present host small music either as private clubs in separate rooms (several hundred in England and Wales) or in reliance (erroneous or otherwise) on the existing law (many thousands), or in on the basis of Brearley –v-Morley (1899) (singing for one's own enjoyment not public performance), or tacitly, or that host (usually traditional) dance in the open air outside London, will not bother to "tick the box" and will be lost as performance venues. Temporary event notices are no substitute for they are number limited and subject to a fee that will (even though not huge) greatly inhibit amateur performance. This would be a disaster for the cultural heritage and cultural bedrock of England and Wales.

What is needed are: -

1)        An very sweeping exemption for unamplified music - the rare cases of massed trombones or groups of Japanese drummers are so rare that they can be left to the imperfectly enforced existing law of noise nuisance. If premises enjoy any licence under the Act they must be safe as such. Music without amplification (perhaps also if it is without extra lighting or staging, which in my experience are very rare for unamplified music) does not add significantly to any risks to any of the licensing objectives. The lack of amplification creates a self-policing number limit for without amplification a signer cannot be heard over a large crowd. It follows that subjecting unamplified music to a licensing regime, even disapplying some conditions, is disproportionate.

2)        An exemption for dance to unamplified music. Usually this will be Morris or other folk dance and the position is so similar that it hardly needs separate consideration.

3)        A genuinely light-touch regime for small events. In many cases these will need some controls, but of course the existence of a licence to sell alcohol or for some other thing under the Act will cover the basics. The differences lie in the amplification. Therefore there are three obvious possibilities. First, if events using amplification had to give advance notice, the relevant authorities would be alerted to the possible need to use their existing pre-emptive or reactive powers under various Acts including the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Environmental Protection Act – I can provide extracts if needed. If the notice specified a little guitar amplifier in a jazz band, they could decide not to bother. Second it would be possible to say that small events could not use amplifiers unless the local authority had prescribed a scheme for the use of noise meters. Third one could say that they could use amplifiers, but would have to comply with a noise meter scheme if introduced. It would even be possible to limit the number of performers using amplification, but some method of controlling the likely noise is essential. Otherwise, even thought the JCHR has not yet taken the point, the creation of a scheme that permits amplified music in the knowledge that the existing law on noise is not adequately enforced would face a problem under Article 8 ECHR. Conversely, pre-licensing of all music that uses amplification, even if the use is minor would be an unjustified interference. The issue in both cases is proportionality.



I should make the point that all of these things have been suggested to the government already – including by myself, so an assertion that they are new issues would not be credible. I have even submitted drafts of language, which are available if wished to be seen.

Finally I should say that any purported government reliance on the ACPO letter of the 20th June 2003 would be hard to defend at this stage. First, it is notable that the government dismissed earlier ACPO representations about the (self-evident) risks to the licensing objectives posed by big-screen TV. Now it seeks to hide behind ACPO, in relation to events that in general give rise to far lesser (if any) risks to the licensing objectives. Second, if notification or noise metering is adopted for small events, the types of events that ACPO were worried about ("Heavy metal") may be monitored in advance or will become impractical. Third the draft amendment ACPO were addressing has already been superseded (most notably by the removal of dance as exempted matter), and ther criticisms would not be relevant (even if they were originally) to an amendment of the type discussed above.

Therefore it would be justified and meritorious to return this issue to the Commons in the hope that sanity may eventually prevail under the press of business, since the Parliament Acts give no relevant coercive power

Yours



Richard McD. Bridge.