Clause 1 - Licensable activities and qualifying club activities
Licensing Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale. I have not had the privilege of doing so before. I am sure that you will chair the Committee with great fairness and a desire for us to proceed as rapidly as possible through the business, so I do not propose to take too long on these amendments and proposed new schedule 1.
The amendments would remove the provision to regulate entertainment and would replace it with a provision to license public gatherings where there have not been regular public gatherings before. They would do so for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) outlined from the Front Bench.
Schedule 1 defines ''entertainment'' in great detail. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) referred to motocross events—I believe that that is another term for banger racing. Such events took place near Wanborough in her constituency and caused great concern to local people. The schedule does not cover that type of event and I am sure that hon. Members can think of many other events that are not covered.
Hon. Members will know that, in another place, many efforts were made to add to the list of exemptions. For example, there was an exemption for garden fêtes, garden parties and other such entertainments, and amendments on unamplified music. Is the schedule effective, or is it merely confusing? If it is not very effective, is it really necessary? Is there a better way to regulate such entertainments?
I assume, from what the Minister said on Second Reading, and having heard that debate, that the purpose of the regulation was to ensure that people's quiet enjoyment of their own property was not disturbed and that disturbance was not caused to the public in general. I assume that there is no prejudice against outdoor wrestling, compared with outdoor motor cycle events, that it was not thought that scratch race meetings held on private property cause less, or more, trouble than outdoor wrestling, or that it was not because we have a view on whether it matters that a play is or is not scripted.
Would the mime artists in Covent Garden be covered by the Bill? I believe they would be covered, because there is no script and there is a provision for off-the-cuff entertainment. Under the schedule, a single person could put on a play. That provision is slightly arbitrary. There should be some reasoning behind the content of the schedule. I considered the matter another way, by asking what is the problem that the schedule is attempting to put right? The problem is large numbers of people converging on a place and causing noise or other inconvenience to members of the public, either outdoors in public places or in their enjoyment of their private homes and business premises.
The schedule is unnecessary. We should not go to the trouble of defining every different entertainment with a range of inclusions and exclusions. Hon. Members may be taken with this part of my argument, if by no other. It is not necessary to deal with all the amendments printed on pages 506 to 509 of the amendment paper. We should not try to define what is and is not an entertainment; we should instead try to remedy the problem of what is noisy and disruptive.
Public nuisance and environmental health legislation contains provisions to protect people, whether on private premises or in public, from excess noise—excess amplified music—and other types of nuisance, such as smoke. If somebody desires to hold a bonfire in a public place where it has not traditionally been held, that could cause difficulty to some of their neighbours. That would be covered by existing legislation. It is not necessary to regulate entertainment. What is necessary is the regulation of large numbers of people coming together in a particular place, regardless of their purpose.
The Bill covers too many activities that have taken place quietly and without trouble. My intention is that amendments Nos. 96 and 97 should remove the effect of schedule 1. We could limit the application of the regulations by defining public gatherings. If hon. Members turn to page 522 of the amendment paper, they will see that new schedule 1 would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations that define both public gatherings and the size that is contemplated for a public gathering. I would have preferred the definitions to be included in the Bill.
Under new schedule 1, the Secretary of State would be able to define a public gathering within
''the normal meaning of those words''—
that is, not a private gathering to which people are invited—
''save that they exclude premises which have planning permission (or established use certificates) for use of public gatherings of the size contemplated''.
Clearly, such a gathering is acceptable—whether it is noisy is a matter for environmental health or public nuisance legislation. Those excluded premises must
''have a valid fire certificate'',
which is a necessity, or they may
''have regularly in the last five years been used''
for this purpose, whether it is for a church fete that takes place once a year in the vicarage garden, or a barn dance that takes place three times a year in a farmer's barn, or whether it is in a town.