Penrose: live music plans out of my hands

Licensing minister John Penrose has stressed there are "real risks" with associated with live music events and that any decision on deregulation will be taken by a number of departments.

The Government has promised "radical" plans to reduce red tape in live music licensing following calls from campaigners to grant exemptions for gigs that attract fewer than 200 people.

In a Westminster Hall debate, Penrose said: "There are real risks associated with live entertainment of one kind or another, simply because it can involve a large number of people in a comparatively small space.

"There are therefore concerns about health and safety, the disturbance caused by people arriving at and leaving a venue, public order and so on. All those issues have to be dealt with, so the devil in deregulating, or reducing the amount of regulation involved in, the licensing of entertaining is very much in the detail."

Penrose said he hoped to announce details of the Government's plan in due course but it would depend on "collective responsibility".

He said the Department for Work and Pensions would be involved in health and safety and the Home Office on public order as well as his own Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

"They have to sign off and approve these things, which have to be carefully and properly considered so that everybody is sure that we are not creating an unintended consequence," he said.

Criminalising​

Hamish Birchall, who heads the Live Music Forum, said that legislation was already in place to address health and safety concerns.

"The only arguable justification for a licensing regime pre-emptively criminalising the provision of live music subject to prior consent from the public or the local authority, or both, is where there is the potential for a significant negative impact on the local community that cannot be adequately regulated by existing legislation," he said.

"This is clearly not the case for the vast majority of small gigs taking place within reasonable hours. 

"For the umpteenth time a minister directly involved in the deregulation debate fails to grasp this by the horns and explain why live music should be a special case."

Suffer in silence​

Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers strategic affairs director Kate Nicholls said: "This is a disappointing response from a minister supposedly responsible for tourism, a key driver of economic growth.

"Hospitality and tourism is not only big business, it is a vital component of our creative industries - such a vital, vibrant and dynamic sector needs a strong, effective voice at the heart of Government, instead the ministers statement confirms that as a sponsoring department DCMS does not have the necessary weight and gravitas to deliver the supportive regulatory environment the industry needs.

"Further delay in progressing these relatively minor changes will result in a decline in the diversity of outlet and offering and a further polarization of the sector.

"In effect, ministers will turn the clock back so that the only people who can afford to put on live music are late night bars.

"The people who really suffer as a result are our customers and the musicians themselves, and of course the responsible operators - all of whom will suffer in silence."