The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #57663 Message #981489
Posted By: The Shambles
11-Jul-03 - 04:57 PM
Thread Name: Licensing Bill moves on -OUR FUTURE
Subject: RE: Licensing Bill moves on -OUR FUTURE
The following from Hamish Birchall
Dear Ms Jackson
A folk musicians' website has posted a letter from you in which you claim that as a result of Lords' amendments, small venues are now exempt from licensing and that in your view the legislation is now 'sound'.
Firstly, a factual correction: the Lords did not exempt small venues. Any featured public performance of live music remains illegal unless licensed, amplified or unamplified, unless it takes place in a public place of religious worship, a non-profit-making garden fete, or non amplified music only as an integral part of a performance of Morris dancing, or dancing of a similar nature.
The effect of the Lords' amendment is simply that licence conditions may be 'suspended' in certain circumstances. It is a difficult provision to interpret, it was opposed by the Local Government Association, and we will not know for some time whether it will have any significant beneficial effect.
Secondly, can you fairly claim that this legislation is sound when it exempts unamplified live music performance if accompanying folk dancers, but if you take the dancers away the event is illegal unless licensed? Can you claim it is sound if organising a piano recital in a library is a criminal offence unless licensed, but the provision of big screen entertainment, plus amplification would be exempt at any time, no matter how many people attend?
Lord Lester, the authority on human rights law, spoke during the Lords debate that resulted in the Govermment amendment going through. He said:
'I find the distinction drawn between live music in pubs and dead music or dead entertainment on mass television in pubs arbitrary and somewhat discriminatory. Perhaps it reflects some kind of cultural bias. I believe that it shows a complete lack of proportion to insist on unnecessary regulation in licensing.
I should be interested to know how the Minister [Lord McIntosh], for whom I have such high regard, would explain, if he had to do so in a court of law, how this kind of regulation is proportionate and how it satisfies the basic principle of proportionality. Are the means being used really necessary to achieve the Government's legitimate aims, or would some lesser sacrifice of free expression be proportionate?'
Lord McIntosh did not respond to Lord Lester's questions.
Where live music is concerned the Licensing Act 2003 is much more complex than the old legislation. Thankfully it does abolish high annual entertainment licence fees, but it ensnares far more live music events than I think any previous entertainment licensing regime. Worse, it maintains the perverse elevation of what Lord Lester describes as dead music over live music in places where live music should be a normal activity.
Pragmatically, the music industry will now have to make the best of the new law. I hope you will do anything you can to encourage the Government to its best to counterbalance the cultural bias inherent in the new law.
Yours sincerely
Hamish Birchall
MU adviser - PEL reform
020 7267 7700