Schedule 1 - Provision of regulated amendments
Licensing Bill [Lords]
3:00 pm
Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)
I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but we owe the music industry and the licensing industry a duty to clarify the situation with regard to licensing music. I do not know the exact number of licensed premises that apply for an entertainments licence at present: some people say that the proportion is about 8 per cent. and others say that it is lower than that. Regardless of what the figure is, the performance of live music in this country is enormously distorted by the two-in-a-bar rule. The Musicians Union was the first to want to get rid of that rule: it said that a much more consistent approach was necessary. Increasingly, we are not even seeing two in a bar; it is one guy with a karaoke machine and that is the golden age of live music performances in licensed premises in this country. I fear that we will lose the hugely creative undergrowth that is necessary for an industry that is important to us.