Debate on Licensing Act - get in there!!

Subject: Debate on Licensing Act - get in there!!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 12:44 PM

Sorry about the strange title - I was looking for things to catch peoples attention. Note - the Address to send stuff to......

The following from Hamish Birchall:

The House of Lords debate on the revised Licensing Guidance, forced on the government by the Liberal Democrats, looks set to take place on Monday evening 15 October 2007.

By way of preparation the Lib Dems have set up an email address for members of the public to send examples of problems caused by the revised Guidance, published by DCMS on 28 June, or indeed problems caused by the Licensing Act itself: [e-mail]

A Lib Dem source said: 'We are primarily interested in the new guidance and any specific points about the old guidance ought to refer to comparisons with the new guidance, rather than examples of how the old guidance was defective.'

Commenting on the revised Guidance in The Stage today, Lord Clement-Jones, Lib Dem culture spokesperson, said:

"The government hasn't really taken the opportunity to simplify things. It's 140 pages of guidance - it's a very good doorstop. But it doesn't cure all the idiocies of last year, which have been highlighted by the campaigners. And I don't think the government is correct in saying that that the Licensing Act 2003 has encouraged live music. If anything, it has made councils much more wary. People have cancelled events, good events."
http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/17508/lib-dem-lord-forces-debate-on-live-music

Meanwhile, it looks as though DCMS has quietly disbanded the Live Music Forum - before the important follow-up survey of live music. Feargal Sharkey is now the 'former' chair of the LMF, and the LMF has held its 'final' meeting.

The only survey that attempted to measure the amount of live music taking place under the old licensing regime was the MORI live music survey of August 2004. DCMS notoriously misreported the findings, claiming in a press release of 25 August 2004 that 1.7m live gigs a years were taking place in 'bars, clubs and restaurants', and this indicated a 'flourishing' live gig scene. These sweeping claims were widely reported in the national press. But some months later, after an investigation, the Market Research Society ruled the 1.7m estimate misleading, since it was for all venues surveyed, not just for bars, clubs and restaurants. MRS also reduced the 1.7m gig estimate to 1.3m for gigs in bars, clubs and restaurants. DCMS has never publicly acknowledged this revision, although under pressure it later published some clarifications above the original press release:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_library/Press_notices/archive_2004/dcms110_04.htm

Last Tuesday, 23 July, DCMS issued a press release announcing that Feargal Sharkey, the 'former chair of the Live Music Forum', had been tasked with 'setting up a network of rehearsal studios for budding musicians':
http://www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_library/Press_notices/archive_2007/dcms086_07.htm

The Live Music Forum section of the DCMS website, last updated on 16 July, notes that the LMF held its 'final' meeting on 16 April 2007:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Creative_industries/music/live_music_forum.htm

But curiously the webpage also reports that in July DCMS commissioned BMRB Social Research to carry out the '2007 Survey of Live Music staged in England and Wales' - the follow-up study to the MORI live music survey of 2004. Results will, apparently, be published this November.

Lord Clement-Jones, the Lib Dem culture spokesperson, has tabled a Parliamentary question in an attempt to find out what is going on:

"To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current status of the Live Music Forum and what plans are there for future meetings of the Forum following publication of their report "Findings and Recommendations" on 4th July 2007".

Subject: RE: Debate on Licensing Act - get in there!!
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 07:06 PM

This appeared in my mailbox yesterday, also from Hamish Birchall

On 28 June, DCMS published revised Licensing Guidance issued under s.182 of the Licensing Act 2003, including new sections intended to clarify the interpretation of the incidental music exemption: http://www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_library/Press_notices/archive_2007/dcms078_07.htm

Both the Live Music Forum and the Musicians Union have already made public their disatisfaction with this exemption, and both have called on the government to do more than tweak the Guidance. They want a new exemption for small gigs within the Act itself. Local authorities need only 'have regard to' the Guidance - it is the Act which takes precedence.

Now an influential Parliamentary Committee has added its voice to the chorus of criticism, saying that the revised incidental music guidance has failed to clarify the law. The latest report of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee published yesterday, 16 July, says of the revised Guidance:

'Some definitions have been clarified, for example what constitutes "a private event", but we regret that some, such as the definition of "incidental music", could not be made clearer and so may impose a burden on the courts until sufficient precedent is established.'
[Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, 27th Report of Session 2006-7, p9, point 27]
See: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldmerit.htm

By way of response, Tim Clement-Jones, the Liberal Democract culture spokesperson in the Lords, has tabled a motion calling on the Guidance to be annulled.

There will now have to be a debate on the Guidance in the House of Lords. However, because of the imminent summer recess, it will take place in the next Parliamentary session, on or before 18 October 2007.

The legal status of the revised Licensing Guidance is now unclear. Sources close to the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee have suggested that it was published by DCMS before it had been properly endorsed by Parliament (by a process called 'negative resolution').