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Sharkey calls for changes to ‘ambiguous’ Licensing Act

Published Wednesday 4 July 2007 at 11:35 by Lalayn Baluch

Live Music Forum chairman Feargal Sharkey is pushing for major legislative changes to the Licensing Act, in order to exempt background music and smaller gigs from regulations.

Set up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in 2004 to assess the impact of new licensing legislation on live music, the LMF has this week submitted its final report to government, in which it demands a number of revisions.

The body has called for live “incidental” music to be exempt from regulation when it is not the primary reason for attending a venue, or if the music attracts less than 100 people. It has also called for unamplified live music to be completely exempt from the Licensing Act.

This would revert to a situation not dissimilar to that in place prior to the new legislation. Then smaller gigs did not need licences under the ‘two in a bar rule’, whereby if music was being played by one or two performers, it did not require licensing.

Meanwhile, the LMF has also urged ministers to “robustly censure” certain local authorities for their “overzealous or incorrect interpretation of the legislation”, which has led to difficulties for some venues.

Its report comes shortly after the DCMS issued guidelines to local councils in a bid to enable them to interpret legislation more consistently.

This new guidance has broadened the criteria under which “incidental music” is exempt from licensing, making it marginally easier for small venues to host live music.

However, Sharkey believes the amendments do not go far enough because guidance “cannot change the legislation”.

He told The Stage: “If forum members felt that changing the guidance was going to have any impact, they would have made that recommendation.

“The recommendation that forum members made was that the legislation itself should be changed.”

Sharkey said it was the “lack of definition about what incidental music is that is causing problems”.

“It needs to be clearly spelt out on the face of the act what is and what is not incidental music, and that there is no ambiguity and no confusion,” he said.

Live music campaigner Hamish Birchall reiterated Sharkey’s stance.

He commented: “I have to say that it [the guidelines] isn’t really the solution, and it won’t stop a lot of the uncertainty.

“It is a very small but very significant change in favour of more liberal reading of the law, but it is nowhere near the proposals made by the LMF and MU.”

A spokesperson from the DCMS confirmed the guideline revisions “were not made in conjunction with the LMF”.

Sharkey expects to hear a response to the report from the DCMS within the “next couple of months”.

He said: “What I am hoping for at this point is that the forum’s report will be given a credible amount of detailed examination, so we can resolve some of these issues. And I am very confident that can happen.”

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