DRAFT LICENSING ACT 2003 (DESCRIPTIONS OF ENTERTAINMENT) (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2013
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Aldous, Peter (Waveney) (Con)
† Blenkinsop, Tom (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
† Bray, Angie (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
† Cunningham, Mr Jim (Coventry South) (Lab)
† Donohoe, Mr Brian H. (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
† Efford, Clive (Eltham) (Lab)
† Leech, Mr John (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
† McCartney, Karl (Lincoln) (Con)
† Macleod, Mary (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
† Morgan, Nicky (Loughborough) (Con)
† Morrice, Graeme (Livingston) (Lab)
Mulholland, Greg (Leeds North West) (LD)
† Murphy, Paul (Torfaen) (Lab)
† Penrose, John (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Robertson, Hugh (Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
† Shannon, Jim (Strangford) (DUP)
† Zahawi, Nadhim (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
John-Paul Flaherty, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
The following also attended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(2):
Vaizey, Mr Edward (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport)
Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee
Tuesday 11 June 2013
[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]
Draft Licensing Act 2003 (Descriptions of Entertainment) (Amendment) Order 2013
8.55 am
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Committee has considered the draft Licensing Act 2003 (Descriptions of Entertainment) (Amendment) Order 2013.—(Nicky Morgan.)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey): Mr Bone, it is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. In fact, whenever I am in your presence, I feel I am in the presence of two people: Mr and Mrs Bone. Perhaps by the judicious raising of an eyebrow or scratching of the nose you may indicate what Mrs Bone’s thoughts are on this important order.
Before I take the Committee formally through the order, I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare, who was the Minister responsible for entertainment licensing. His considerable work on regulated entertainment laid the groundwork for this order. I am sure that, in pubs and clubs up and down the country, they will refer for many years to the Penrose reforms.
I should like to explain, briefly, the context of the order. The Licensing Act 2003 brought together many different forms of licensing: alcohol sale and supply; late night refreshment, and multiple forms of entertainment licensing. The Act had some worthwhile aims and tried to create a one-stop shop for applicants and licensing authorities.
Unfortunately, there was a side effect. The Act brought many types of harmless entertainment—or what many of us would consider to be harmless entertainment—into a regime that was more suited to the heavy duty regulation necessary for higher risk activities. It felt to performers and community groups as though a sledgehammer had been taken to crack a nut. Locally, children’s plays were cancelled and community dances had to be postponed. There were arguments over what was classed as indoor sport; musicians lost venues when the two in a bar rule disappeared; barber shop quartets were at the risk of being criminalised, and the bureaucracy faced by Punch and Judy shows was clearly not the way to do it.
Those are some extreme examples, but they illustrate the effect on a diverse range of activities and how this kind of legislation can have unforeseen impacts on communities. Costs and administration time have eaten into the scarce resources held by many community groups. The situation is clearly ludicrous. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare issued a consultation in 2011 on wide-ranging questions. He asked what would happen if we simply did not regulate these forms of activity. He asked for views on exactly
where regulation was necessary and where it was not. His aims were to get rid of unnecessary bureaucracy and cost; to give performers the chance to perform, and to allow communities to work together again.We had a fantastic response to the consultation and we listened very carefully to what was said. We published a thorough response on 7 January, setting out our intentions. First, we said we would use secondary legislation to deregulate performances of plays, exhibitions of dance and indoor sport up to an appropriate audience limit. Secondly, we said we would bring before Parliament a legislative reform order that would create a range of community exemptions to free up trusted organisations such as schools, hospitals, nurseries, local authorities and various community venues to carry out a range of entertainment activities where appropriate. Thirdly, we said we would consult on measures to aid film exhibition in appropriate community settings.
The order is therefore the first piece of the jigsaw. It is simple and straightforward and I hope that the Committee finds it as welcome as the creative, community and charitable sectors have done. It removes the need between 8 am and 11 pm for licences for public performances of plays, exhibitions of dance and indoor sport, up to a reasonable audience cap: 500 people for plays and dance and 1,000 people for indoor sport. Where any of these activities involves the supply of alcohol, licensing requirements related to those sales will continue to apply. It goes without saying that there will be no change to regulation in this respect.
We see no reason why plays, dance and indoor sport—performances so often at the heart of the community—should need a licence. There was a prevailing view that those types of activity could be deregulated, as there was nothing intrinsic to them that required regulation which is not already adequately covered by other legislation. However, we were asked for an end point to performance, and to ensure that large events were not deregulated. We considered those views carefully and agreed with them.
The limit of 500 people for plays and dance performances was chosen to mirror the existing limit for temporary event notices, which had no mechanism for additional controls on events and very few problems have occurred. For indoor sports, a higher audience cap of 1,000 people was chosen as most venues that host public sports activities are held in purpose-built arenas and the events are usually developed in partnership with local authorities. Many licensing authorities told us that the majority of licensable indoor sporting events were swimming galas held in the local swimming pool, which is already clearly subject to ongoing risk assessment under health and safety law and is a clear case of regulating the same activity twice.
The order also clarifies that, where a contest or exhibition combines boxing or wrestling, which will remain licensable, with one or more martial arts to create a combined fighting sport, this activity is also licensable as if it were a boxing or wrestling activity. We wanted absolute clarity on that point in the context of removing regulation around an indoor sport event. It is right that those activities should stay regulated, and responses to the Government’s consultation were in full support of that approach.
We have received support for our changes from several organisations. The Voluntary Arts Network said:
“The burden of entertainment licensing has in recent years been a major obstacle to voluntary arts groups putting on small
local events and performances. The complexity and cost of regulation intended for much larger-scale events has had a detrimental effect on the tens of thousands of volunteers who give up their own free time for their benefit of their communities.”I am sure that all hon. Members will have examples of that in their constituencies. Arts Council England said:
“As a result of de-regulation, small companies and artists will be better placed to develop and present their work. Small venues will also be more disposed to support plays.”
Finally, I echo a statement from the other place. The Opposition spokesman said that,
“we believe that the proposals strike the right balance between facilitating more live community arts performance on the one hand and wider public safeguarding and protection on the other”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 June 2013; Vol. 745, c. GC119.]
The order will bring sense back to the entertainment licensing regime and free up countless creative groups across England and Wales. I thoroughly commend it to the Committee.
9.2 am
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Bone, and I send my best wishes to Mrs Bone. I welcome the Minister this morning. I am delighted to see him in his place although his name does not appear on the Committee membership list; such are the machinations of this place.
The Opposition generally welcome the measures. It is clear that the extra burdens that the legislation imposed on local organisations such as community groups, sports clubs and schools are an unintended consequence of the 2003 Act. It was introduced to give local communities protection from disruption from large, unregulated events that disturbed the peace of their daily lives, and to protect people attending large gatherings from exploitation and unsafe venues. The changes will introduce more freedom for community-based organisations to put on events that raise funds, bring communities together and nurture talent.
However, as many responses to the Government’s consultation demonstrate, there is considerable concern from some local residents groups and some of the responsible enforcement authorities about the consequences of deregulation, particularly in relation to events involving recorded music.
The Government have said that they intend to introduce new guidance on the day that the new regulations come into force. I should like to explore some of the concerns that were raised in the consultation with the Minister so that they can be put on the record. We all want to encourage people to get involved in organising cultural and sporting events in their communities, and the desire to make it easier for local organisations to put on events without being overburdened by bureaucracy is welcome. However, we cannot completely disregard the concerns that led to the regulations being introduced in the first place.
In their proposals, the Government reduce the maximum size of the audience to 500 for plays and dance, and 1,000 for indoor sport. However, whatever the size of the event, the public have a right to be protected. They should not be exposed to dangers because events are taking place in unsafe venues or are put on by people
who cut corners of the law. Will the Minister confirm that health and safety and fire regulations will apply to all public buildings in which events of those sizes take place? Is he confident that the responsible authorities have the necessary resources to meet any extra demands that they face under the new regulations?There are also issues relating to the rights of others to live their lives without constant disturbances. Will the Minister confirm that if someone suspects that regulations are being flouted, such as noise reaching unreasonable levels, their concerns will be investigated by the local authority or other relevant body? Who has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that numbers are not exceeded and that other regulations relating to the premises are in place?
We need to make clear who holds the enforcement responsibility. We currently have a system in which every event is regulated, and we are moving to one in which a significant number will not be regulated. Therefore, the early warning system and enforcement procedures for those events will be reduced. The police, in particular, have expressed that concern. For events where people may bring their own alcohol, a licensing regime may not be in place. Will the Minister say whether there is anything in the guidance to address that issue for local authorities and the police? Does he think that those events will be problematic or an additional burden on the enforcement authorities?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble, on behalf of the Government, said in answer to a question from Lord Clement-Jones in the other place that this is the first phase of a three-phased approach. The Minister alluded to that in his opening remarks. Lord Clement-Jones asked specifically about the need for Graeco-Roman wrestling to be treated differently from kick boxing, professional boxing and all-in wrestling.
I raise that issue because I want to make a special plea. I must declare an interest, because I am the chair of trustees of a youth club, which has an amateur boxing club. In order to raise funds, from time to time it puts on an exhibition event, which involves boxing bouts. It is not for anyone to make money; it is purely a fundraising exercise. It is probably attended by fewer than 500 people, and certainly fewer than 1,000. It is a genuine local sports organisation. Although other sports organisations will not be covered by this, it is possible that an amateur boxing club will. When the Government move on to the next phase, will they consider consulting the Amateur Boxing Association to find out whether there is any scope for relaxing the rules for purely amateur events of that nature, and whether there is an issue there at all?
When I read through the regulation, knowing what I know about what goes on locally in my constituency, I wondered whether other sports might be caught by its unintended consequences.
Some have expressed concern that licensing events that include martial arts, boxing and wrestling under the regulations is a back door to licensing those sports. There is concern that there is no nationally recognised governing body for kick boxing. I am sure the Minister will put on the record that the draft regulations in no way legitimise that; they are purely about licensing events. People have expressed that concern, which is worthy of being mentioned here.
On the whole, we welcome the draft regulations, which are extremely sensible. People need to be clear about the changes and understand where the rights and responsibilities lie so that they know who to go to when enforcement matters are under consideration. How will local organisations get access to the information they need so that they know their rights and responsibilities? I look forward to the Minister’s response, and we welcome the proposals.
9.10 am
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con): I strongly support the draft regulations for reasons that I hope are clear, given that my hon. Friend the Minister has already been kind enough to mention my previous involvement in getting them a long way along the path to today. In return, I thank both him and his ministerial colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the officials who have been involved throughout the process, for taking the proposals from where I left them in September through to today.
It would have been tremendously easy, given the complexity, the devil in the detail and the difficulty surrounding them, for the proposals to have withered on the vine without someone to push them along, but there have been people both inside and outside the Department who have been willing to put in the extra effort to go the extra mile to ensure that the proposals have progressed, and it is hugely to everyone’s credit, in the Department and elsewhere, that they have continued with the process. I put my personal thanks for that on the record.
In parenthesis, I offer the Committee’s apologies to the Minister. It is very early in the morning, and although he made a noble attempt to raise a smile with one or two remarks, notably his comments on Punch and Judy, we all missed them. While we were laughing on the inside, it may not have made it into Hansard. We welcome any attempt to lighten the mood this morning.
The draft regulations are, as I think was implicit in the Minister’s remarks, only one step in a broader set of proposals. Some are already in force and some originated at the other end of the corridor under the authorship of Lord Clement-Jones, and I hope and expect that other proposals will be brought before a Delegated Legislation Committee, or introduced through other parliamentary procedures, to complete the suite.
The draft regulations try to make a crucial distinction between high-risk activities—there is clearly no appetite in any party for ill-judged or dangerous relaxation of regulatory requirements on them—and activities that were unintentionally captured by the original Licensing Act and did not need the full force of regulation as they are much lower risk. The proposals try to carve out, with a fair degree of precision and a great deal of care, what those lower-risk activities are, with the aim of ensuring that the people putting them on are not subject to the full weight of the sledgehammer of bureaucratic intervention, and that they are given a chance to entertain themselves and their neighbours and to get involved in all sorts of creative arts and other activities. That is why the measure will be particularly welcomed not just by local community groups, many of which will lay on more events because they will find it easier as fewer
obstacles and difficulties are put in their way, but by venue owners, including owners of local pubs, many of whom have found it too difficult—or more difficult than it should be—to lay on such entertainments, and have therefore decided that it is not worth the candle.With any luck, we will find more small venues opening. It is a truism, albeit an important one, that a great many well established names in the music industry say that they got their first gigs in the local pub and that, without that opportunity, they would never have become the household names that we all know. Equally, I hope there will be a huge amount of support from arts and other performing organisations that are looking for opportunities to lay on more activities. Such measures will help them on their way.
I am a strong supporter of the draft regulations, and I know there is a great deal of support for them outside this place. I therefore join the Minister in commending them to the Committee.
9.14 am
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD): Briefly, I would like to echo the comments welcoming the proposals, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare for his work during his time as a Minister. I would also like to mention the work done by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who has argued for deregulation of live entertainment in pubs, clubs and small venues for some considerable time.
I have, however one question for the Minister. I am not making a special plea for Graeco-Roman wrestling, or boxing for that matter, but, where, under the amendment to the definition of boxing or wrestling entertainment, after “wrestling,” the wording
“or which combines boxing or wrestling with one or more martial arts”
is to be inserted, is the Minister happy that that definition encompasses all potentially strong-contact sports that may not necessarily be defined as a martial art or boxing or wrestling? Is he sure that the order will cover all the sports that he would want covered?
9.16 am
Mr Vaizey: I am grateful for the contributions of the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington and of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare as well as the Opposition’s response from the hon. Member for Eltham.
I thank the hon. Member for Eltham for welcoming the measure. It has cross-party support because, as I mentioned earlier, all of us as constituency MPs are aware of many community organisations that will benefit from being freed from bureaucracy. It is important to state that the overwhelming majority of the organisations that we know and work with in our constituencies are sensible, and simply want to put on events for the entertainment or elucidation of their communities. We should support them as far as possible by making their lives easier.
However, that does not preclude hon. Members from asking important questions on the detail of the order, so I am grateful to the hon. Member for Eltham for
raising several points that will allow me to put on record what I hope is useful clarification; if it is not, I will write to him to provide that.The hon. Gentleman mentioned unsafe venues. Safety must be paramount, particularly when large groups of people are gathered together indoors. It is important to put on the record that health and safety controls will apply; those are underpinned by civil law.
As far as nuisance is concerned, of course, none of us wants to live next door to late-night loud music or noise, or to be regularly disturbed by that. In those circumstances, the normal rules pertaining to environmental health under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 will apply.
It will be the organisers’ responsibility to ensure that the right number of people are at the venue, just as it is under the current regulation. Action can be taken by a local authority if it is reported and proved that the numbers exceeded the venue’s limit.
The hon. Member for Eltham quite rightly raised the issue of people bringing their own alcohol to an event. I refer him to my earlier remarks. We should trust the overwhelming majority of organisers to organise a safe and enjoyable event, but the police have powers to intervene should alcohol cause concern. Measures such
as designated public place orders and alcohol control areas are available to the police should that be a pertinent issue.I did not come to the Committee expecting an examination of the place of Graeco-Roman wrestling in our national life or in that of Lord Clement-Jones, a man whom I admire for many reasons and whom I now have a further reason to admire. We think that we have got the correct balance to address the licensing objectives of the 2003 Act, but we will listen to representations if there appear to be any problems. In answer to the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington, we think that we have covered all kinds of contact sport, but if I have got that wrong in any way, I will ensure that I write to him to clarify the position.
The hon. Member for Eltham mentioned the importance of the guidance. A draft of the revised guidance under section 182 of the 2003 Act has been placed in the Libraries, and, if Parliament is content, we aim to commence the order and lay the revised guidance formally on Thursday 27 June. For the elucidation of members of the Committee, the guidance is subject to the negative resolution procedure.