Coulson: Dancing to a complex tune
Parliament has, of course, now gone into recess for the summer, but not before the Government put its support behind Lord Clement-Jones' Live Music Bill, with the main trade-off being an 11pm terminal for the exemption instead of the previous midnight hour.
The Government's position was that this cutback would represent a fair compromise between the needs of the licensed trade and those of neighbours who would not want to be disturbed for an extra hour at that time of night. I
t was accepted with reluctance by the Bill's sponsors, although there may be scope for an extension of this when the Government's own review of music legislation has taken place.
However, it is not surprising that several Lords expressed complete bafflement at the series of amendments which came forward during the debate at committee stage on 15 July.
Section 177 of the Licensing Act 2003, which forms the basis of this concession, was always one of the most impenetrable sections of the new law, having been added late to the draft as a result of Lord Clement-Jones and others seeking an exemption for live music.
I can remember at the time giving a talk on the section to a group of local authority officers who were about as perplexed as their Lordships are now. It is not an easy concept.
Over the six years since the Act took effect, Section 177 does not appear to have been widely used, and the level of understanding has still not improved much either. The problem is that the exemption itself contains exemptions, where the premises are subject to review for some reason, so that the local authority conditions can be re-imposed if there is considered to be a need for them.
The manner in which the new Bill seeks to change this part of the Act is rather convoluted and will take some getting used to. Basically, Section 177 appears to have been turned over to allowing small-scale dancing (rather than live music) as an exempt category, by removing all references to live music in that section.
There is then added a completely new Section 177A which covers small-scale live music on alcohol licensed premises, which repeats the 200-person maximum and sets the hours between 8am and 11pm on any day.
It also, for good measure, includes what might be termed a 'royal wedding' provision for special occasions. In a strange piece of drafting, we are informed that 'live music' means 'live music', which I would have thought was fairly obvious.
I have never understood what 'something similar to live music' means in any case. I know my Stockhausen!
A welcome addition is the removal of the requirement to license entertainment facilities, because we never really understood what this meant in practice. I have just put down a 13-amp socket and a performance space on one application for non-pub premises and this removal from the Act is a welcome and sensible measure.
The other two changes to the law involve an exemption for live music in workplaces (other than licensed premises, of course) and a general exemption for live unamplified music during the specified hours on unlicensed premises, so that unlicensed halls and rooms can benefit from the licensing exemption entirely, without apparently a restriction on numbers either.
I suppose the nature of the Lords' discussion shows how complicated this area of the law has become. I have never liked adding supplementary clauses to Bills and it is a shame that the lettering system has been scattered through the Act because of amendments. Let us hope that everyone can interpret the score.
