Ballyhoo, bunkum and bum notes

The idea that the satisfactory licensing of entertainment has been achieved by bundling it all up into the alcohol licence system, as some Government ministers would have you believe, is all ballyhoo and bunkum!

There is no doubt that a great many licensees and their advisors fell foul of the system when they tried to fill in the new application forms properly.

Apart from the shortcomings of the forms themselves, on which I commented last week, there are the various headings — the fact that "entertainment of a like kind" is not, and never has been, a heading in its own right, not having a proper meaning, that there are no combination headings, and sporadic evenings of entertainment are just not catered for — the exemptions and concessions are totally misunderstood and possibly misapplied. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Now, the Department for Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee wants the two-in-a-bar rule reinstated, in spite of the fact that we have moved on from there by a considerable distance.

The reason the two-in-a-bar concession was useful was that it took you out of the local authority entertainment-licensing system, what were formerly PELs — public entertainment licences, and their raft of conditions. So it was possible to have a pub with a three-year justices' licence, untroubled by the authorities, and put on small-scale music without town hall interference.

But now, interference from the town hall is built into the whole system. The more powers and controls Jacqui Smith gives to the police and local authorities, the more the running of pubs is constrained by red tape.

Even without music of any kind, you are still under the cosh. Adding small-scale music to the existing premises licence, apart from the initial expense of variation, is not as onerous as it used to be.

There may be conditions, of course, including sound-proofing and noise-limiters, but nowadays environmental health officers have a raft of sanctions to use to control noise, so the actual licensing system is not necessarily the vehicle they would need to do it.

I very much doubt whether this or any successive Government would want to embark on a return to that concession. Judging from the attitude shown by two recent committees in the Commons and the Lords, as soon as the proposal was put forward they would think of ways to ensure that neighbours could object, and that a licence would be required.

This is not a good time for concessions to the licensed trade, but more power to the music lobby for regularly gaining an opportunity to put its case, and persuading MPs that the current constraints are inhibiting live music in pubs.

What I would like to see is a re-think of the senseless application form so that the type of musical entertainment, its likely regularity and its size or style are more clearly defined, for the benefit of everyone. Importing the old distinctions might have seemed a good idea at the time, but now it looks completely anachronistic and wastes a great deal of time for applicants trying to describe what they are doing.

At the same time, proper concessions for small-scale live music could be built into the notorious Section 177, which actually applies to "small premises", not "small music"! I am sure that it is not beyond the wit and wisdom of the DCMS to recognise that changes are long overdue and that this completely baffling section needs to be repealed and replaced with something sensible.

It does beg the question of whether it was really sensible to run alcohol and entertainment together in this way in the first place, But that's done and dusted now. We just have to make the best of it.