Clause 98 - Temporary event notice
Licensing Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I am grateful to the Minister for his response so far. I am even more grateful for the fact that he started his response only two minutes before the termination of this morning's proceedings, because it enabled me to find in my filing system the letters that I have received from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, the president of the Morris Federation and the Men of Wight Morris Dancers. However difficult we find it to define folk music, there is no doubt that morris dancing is folk dance. Martin Davis, the bagman of the Men of Wight Morris Dancers, fears that the Bill will prevent the use of smaller venues and points out,
''this Christmas alone, the Morris Dancers have donated £125 to the Mountbatten Hospice''
in my constituency. There is no doubt that the activity that they undertake is for profit. It is not an unprofitable activity. There is no doubt that it is a performance of dance, in relation to schedule 1(2). There is no doubt that it takes place in the presence of an audience and that its purpose, or one of its purposes, is entertaining that audience.
I very much hope that the Minister will think again about whether this activity has to be regulated. I welcome the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire because it would exempt this activity. I should like to spend a little more time on the matter because, as I said, we appear to be regulating morris dancing in open spaces—not necessarily only in pub car parks or in the vicinity of the sale of alcohol. The president of the Morris Federation, John Bacon, is concerned about the Bill's implications and how it will affect his members. He says that he supports the intent of the Bill, but the problem is that the
''dance form and its music together with Mumming will all be illegal in public houses that do not have a licence''.
The Minister shakes his head. Perhaps he would like to tell me why I am wrong. If he intervenes and convinces me that I am wrong, I will shut up. If he cannot do so, I will keep going until he tells me why I am wrong.