Live music boost for pubs
Live music and other entertainment provisions could be taken out of the licensing regime altogether, in a move that could make it easier for venues to host gigs.
The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has already given partial backing to the Live Music Bill from Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones, which wants licence exemptions for small gigs.
In a letter from culture secretary Jeremy Hunt to his Labour predecessor Tessa Jowell, Hunt said: "We will also be looking into whether we can go further than the Bill by de-regulating entertainment from the Licensing Act 2003, and [culture minister] John Penrose hopes to be in a position to say more in the coming weeks."
Removing live music from the Licensing Act should in theory reduce the bureaucracy involved in staging small-scale gigs, although no more details are available at present.
Live music campaigner Hamish Birchill said this could be the "radical" plan to help live music mentioned by Penrose in June last year.
Debate has surrounded the role of live music in the licensing regime since formal control of alcohol licensing shifted from DCMS to the Home Office last July. Live music and other entertainment provisions, however, remained with DCMS.
Jowell, who was culture secretary when the Licensing Act was passed in 2003, wrote to Hunt in response to an enquiry about the licensing of live music from a jazz singer resident of her Dulwich and West Norwood constituency in London.
Meanwhile, 35 MPs to date have signed an Early Day Motion calling for live music licensing exemptions to be implemented "without delay". The EDM is from influential MP John Whittingdale, who chairs the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee.
