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24 Mar 2003 : Column 107—continued
8.57 pm
Mr. Kevan Jones (North Durham): I welcome the Bill, which will update our archaic licensing laws and address some of the serious antisocial behaviour problems that we all experience in our constituencies. During the passage of the Bill in the other place, I was disappointed that such progressive legislation was dogged by silly stories, such as claims that the spontaneous singing of "Happy Birthday" would be banned, as would church singing. We have seen that continued tonight by the Conservative party, a once great party now desperate for votes from folk singers, morris dancers and
wassailers. Such stories have raised serious concern among constituents. Like other hon. Members, I have received many letters prompted by the scare stories. I urge the Minister, when he replies, to try to nail some of the misleading claims and downright lies that have been put around about the Bill's effects.In framing legislation to cover such a wide variety of activities, the Government faced problems. However, the key consideration was public safety. The Bill is not the result of the bureaucratic whims of civil servants but an attempt to ensure public safety. As a former chair of the public health committee in Newcastle, responsible for public entertainment licences and involved in the city's millennium celebrations, I know the hard work that is done to ensure safety at public events. The tragedies in the United States recently, in which fire ripped through two night clubs, showed the results when we do not get the safeguards right. In framing legislation, our job is to ensure that the public can enjoy themselves, and to ensure that those responsible for organising events have the powers to do so safely. If we get it wrong, the same voices that have accused the Government of excessive bureaucracy will ask why tragedies have been allowed to happen.
I welcome the transfer of licensing authority to local councils. That will bring an element of democratic accountability to the system, and the transparency that has been sadly lacking. With no disrespect to hard-working local magistrates, I can say that it will give people an understanding at local level of how and why licences are granted. From my experience, the present system excludes local people. If they object to a licence, their ability to influence magistrates is limited. Many people are intimidated by the magistrates courts and, as I have seen at first hand, by the threat of the applicant's lawyers to recover the legal costs from local residents. A licensing procedure that is simpler and more responsive to local people and which allows them more easily to make representations to local licensing authorities will be widely welcomed.
I know that there are those who argue strongly against the transfer of responsibility to local authorities. The main argument, as I understand it, is that local councillors will come under undue influence from local people. I do not accept that. Local councils already deal with a range of licensing functions and quasi-judicial matters from public entertainment licences and taxi licences through to the granting of planning permission. Again, in my experience, councillors carry out those functions in a professional way, in accordance with the guidance issued by Ministers. Framing the guidance for the new system will be extremely important. Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider ensuring that there is a mandatory duty on local councillors to undergo formal training for their new responsibility?
With reference to the draft guidance that has been issued, the sufficiency argument has been mentioned—the idea that we should cap the number of licences granted in a certain area. I do not agree that that is a simple way of restricting licensing in an area. The overall policy must take into account types of licence and the amount of enforcement that the local authority will carry out. Simply capping the number of licences in a particular area will not work. A few years ago in Newcastle licensing magistrates and the police imposed
a ban on all new on licences in the city centre on the ground of sufficiency. All that that did was artificially to increase the value of premises in the city centre. It did not encourage diversity, but led to vertical drinking establishments, as I called them in a debate earlier this year, whose sole aim was to dispense as much alcohol as possible. It did nothing to encourage café bars, restaurants and other establishments.As part of the guidance, local councils should be encouraged to include an element of diversity in their licensing policy. It is important that local licensing authorities deal with individual applications on their merit. They should consider not just the number of similar licences in a particular area, but the detailed proposals in each case.
I know that other hon. Members want to get into the debate, so I shall conclude with two other matters that should be covered by guidance. Local councils should be given powers to regulate "happy hours" when alcohol is sold at give-away prices, leading to serious antisocial behaviour problems. Finally, for premises holding a certain number of people, a requirement for registered door supervisors should be a condition of the licence. The door supervisor system piloted in Newcastle works well. It is administered by the local council and is welcomed by the publican trade. It would provide a degree of safety, which we all want.
9.4 pm
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome): I want to make a few remarks on the subject of the public entertainments licence. I have no idea how I got into that issue, but into it over recent years I certainly got. I tabled a few questions to which the Minister was incautious enough to reply with a sentiment that was not entirely complimentary to Somerset folk singers, managing to incur the wrath of the entire folk singing community, not only in the west country but across England. Indeed, I believe that he was the first person to prompt a fatwa from The Wurzels. Things escalated to the point where I found myself on television singing along with Billy Bragg while other hon. Members had gags over their mouths. I thought that that would give me some kudos in the eyes of my teenage children, but that proved to be a sadly unfulfilled hope. They were more embarrassed and mortified than they had ever been.
I was incensed by the previous two-in-a-bar rule because it was stupid law. It was ridiculous law that was crying out for amendment, so I hugely welcomed the Government's commitment to introduce a reforming Bill. I hoped that there would be some genuine deregulation. When I first read the Bill—before it was amended in another place—I was sadly disappointed. Despite the Minister's intentions—I still believe that his intentions in this respect are good—the Bill was drafted and constructed by civil servants in his Department in such a way that it introduced a regime of regulation of entertainment and music making that caught a much wider spread of people and premises.
I am saddened by that for several reasons. First, I like people to have the opportunity to play and to listen to live music in as many venues as possible. Secondly, such entertainment can make a major contribution to our tourist industry, especially in rural areas, where we do
not do nearly enough to promote the traditional inn that provides not only good food and drink but entertainment that fits the cultural identity of the west country and elsewhere. Thirdly, it is important that young musicians have the opportunity to rehearse and to play in front of an audience at a formative stage in their careers. If we cut that off, we cut off a large part of the future professional and amateur music scene.I share the view expressed by the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride). I am not convinced that we need a public entertainments licence as such. Three areas desperately need regulation. One is health and safety at a venue. As the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said, it would be on all our consciences if we failed to make appropriate health and safety legislation. Secondly and perfectly properly, we need to prevent nuisance to neighbours and people who are affected by performances. The third is to protect children from entertainment forms that are inappropriate for them.
None of those needs an entertainment licence that restricts not health and safety aspects, not the access of children and not nuisance to neighbours, but the act of performing. That is the fundamental flaw in the Government's approach. Given that they are to stick to that course—there is a long enough precedent for it in England and Wales, but not of course in Scotland, where people do not feel the need for such legislation—it is incumbent on them to make it as easy as possible for licences to be issued, to encourage the spread of musical and cultural activity in as wide an array of venues as possible and to enable people to take up such opportunities. Again, I have some difficulty with the Government's approach. However often Ministers may assert that such and such is not their intention, the Bill does not say it. I beg the Minister to go just a little further.
The Lords have already pointed the way in some of their amendments. We have already dealt with churches, village halls and community halls and I hope that we shall deal with educational establishments. The Government are supposed to be reconsidering the fee structure. All acoustic performances should be exempt from the provisions, as they are not capable of causing the nuisance that the Bill attempts to remedy. Whether we limit numbers or types of performance is a matter of opinion, but there should be a threshold below which the full licensing provisions do not apply.
We need to examine the transitional arrangements, as well as the licence variations, which are a significant barrier. If a licensee does not initially apply for an entertainment licence but wants one at a later stage, it could prove too costly for them to countenance and we could thus eventually see a contraction in the number of live venues.
I genuinely believe that the Government are listening to some of the points that have been made. Some of us have been accused of scaremongering, but any scares that I have mongered were manufactured in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The more that the Minister can allay fear by changing the precise terms of the Bill and by what he includes in the regulations and guidance, the more he will receive my support. The measure would then be genuinely
deregulatory. I commend the Minister on listening, but I am worried that there will be backsliding from the position established in another place.My closing points will confirm the Department's caricatured view of me as a yokel in a smock. I shall not deal at length with wassailing and the intervention of the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) on the subject, except to point out that a Somerset wassail is different from a Totnes wassail. In Somerset, we perform the act of wassailing on old twelfth night; it involves shooting guns into ancient apple trees—which probably have tree preservation orders—in order to scare away the punkies. An inordinate amount of cider drinking takes place while an ashen faggot burns and the wassail song is sung. The number of licences that we should need to perform all those activities is mind-boggling. They are best done in the privacy of Somerset villages and should not be brought to the attention of the wider community.
I am worried about the issue of cider at farmers' markets. The licensing proposals will not encourage the people who run the markets to apply for licences. Alcoholic beverages—cider or the wine that is produced in my constituency—are only a small part of what is sold at farmers markets. Often the management of those markets changes regularly, so there will be no incentive to obtain a licence. That will be a serious impediment to local cider and wine makers. Will the Minister consider that point in Committee?
Incidentally, will the Minister also look into the position for roadside sales of farmhouse cider where they fall below the Excise threshold? As he knows, such sales are traditional in my part of the country. They are part of the tourism industry, as well as a jolly good idea for everyone who lives in our part of the world. What impact will the measure have on them?
Despite my reservations, I am still confident that the measure will do what it says on the tin: it will be deregulatory. To achieve that, however, the Minister will have to listen to people involved in the music industry, in music promotion and the licensed trade. They know about the problems and have recognised the pitfalls in the Bill as it is presently worded and the dangers in the guidance—or lack of it—that might be issued to local authorities for the exercise of their duties under the measure. At all costs, we do not want a Bill that purports to deregulate but actually reduces the number of venues for live music in this country. Live music matters.
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