The Stage

Grade uses first speech in House of Lords to support Live Music Bill

Published Friday 4 March 2011 at 16:57 by Matthew Hemley

New Conservative peer and former ITV chairman Michael Grade has used his maiden speech in the House of Lords to back Tim Clement-Jones’ Live Music Bill, claiming the 2003 Licensing Act which it seeks to amend is a “bad law” that denies up and coming music talent the chance to develop their skills.

The Live Music Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords today, and is aimed at changing the 2003 act to allow gigs with audiences of 200 or less, held between 8am and midnight in bars and workplaces, to take place without a licence.

Grade said that under the current act, anyone who plays without a licence “can tune up and get banged up” and added that acts such as the Beatles would not have been so successful had they been forced to operate under the act.

“They all had to start somewhere, and I am certain that wherever they did start, they were not burdened with the redundant bureaucracy of filling out forms to apply for a licence for a harmless pursuit,” he said.

Grade also said that in an “iPod and headphone world” more should be done to “encourage and promote live performance”.

He also claimed the act “threatens musical life in our nations at its most fragile point – grassroots level”.

In today’s reading of the bill, Joan Bakewell also spoke in favour of the amendments the bill makes to the act, claiming they are needed to help musicians, audiences and venues.

Like Grade, she said that the bill should be supported because of the fact live music is often neglected in favour of iPods and headphones.

“Anything that can move the enjoyment of music to a live event with a space between the music and the audience seems to me valuable,” she added.

Clement-Jones, introducing the second reading, said the bill was designed to “reduce the red tape surrounding the performance of live music, particularly in small venues”.

He said the 2003 act had created a “bureaucratic minefield” and added that his bill also calls for live, un-amplified music to be allowed anywhere between 8am and midnight.

However, he said this could be “disapplied in alocohol-licensed premises if complaints are upheld”.

He also welcomed the fact MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, has tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons, calling for small venues to be made exempt “without delay”.