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In back
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An extract from Planet, October 2003
I
On 15th July 2003, the innocuously sounding Licensing Bill received the
Royal Assent and became law. Although the arguments for and against the
bill raged strong and fierce in some quarters, by and large they
received little attention in the press. Yet I believe it is no
exaggeration to describe it as one of the greatest attacks on civilised
values in Wales that I have seen in my lifetime.
This is isn’t the place to go into the reasons why it received so
little press coverage, nor is it particularly worthwhile to examine why
Kim Howells distorted the facts throughout the debates. Politicians on
the make in the Blair presidency do what they have to do to climb the
greasy poles. Hardly any of us were surprised at the shallowness of his
interest in the arts, nor at the poverty of the few arguments he
eventually mustered.
What does seem certain is that the genesis of the bill was the
continuing fear of public disorder in the minds of the electorate, and
the fact that it seems impervious to either massaging of figures or any
real reduction in crime. Where people are faced by evidence from their
own senses, that town and city centres are awash with loud young
people, coupled with the fact that the behavioural norm seems modelled
on Club Ibiza culture, no amount of reassurance will work.
The government can’t actually do anything about any of this. Not
because they are unwilling to repress - there is a strong authoritarian
streak at the heart of New Labour, in direct line of descent from John
Knox’s Presbyterianism - but because it requires a reduction in alcohol
consumption which the powerful brewing industry won’t wear. So, as Yes
Minister would have it, where the government can’t do anything
about a problem it is driven into merely looking as if it is trying to
do something about it. And so we have this bloody awful law.
II
For those who haven’t been following closely, the original bill started
from the position that all cultural activity that involved performance
- plays, poetry readings, dances, song and music - should need a
licence to take place. The bill defined its remit as inside or outside
buildings, otherwise known as everywhere, and it wasn’t long before
people started to point out that a whole load of cultural activity was
going to be caught in this bill. It would be an attack on centuries-old
customs and practices.
If the government expected the people to applaud the outlawing of carol
singing and being protected from the fearsome spectacle of unlicensed
Morris dancers they were disappointed. From most of the populace there
was incomprehension or indifference, while from an outraged and
significant minority there were howls of rage. Kim Howells did the
usual tour of sound and vision studios and tried to sound reassuring:
of course these provisions wouldn’t be used, it was laughable to
suggest that the authorities would crack down on innocent amusements.
But no changes to the bill were forthcoming; it was all expected to
depend on a reasonable interpretation by local authorities, a fragile
prop if ever there was one to support our cultural inheritance.
The Musicians Union, concerned at the massive impact this would have on
their members, took opinion from Queen’s Counsel, who confirmed their
worst fears and said that, as far as the wording went, the bill
actually made even bell-ringing illegal, unless the church had a
licence. Private parties, school concerts, play recitals and more were
all caught in its widely-framed clauses.
Cracks started appearing just before Christmas 2002 when the Church of
England announced that under the provisions of this bill they would be
£2.6m down the tubes and, as the Times reported, “Ministers have
admitted privately that several parts of the Licensing Bill are
ridiculous and need complete re-drafting “The Government then moved to
exempt churches, but in the New Year they were told that they would
probably be in breach of human rights legislation if they didn’t extend
the exemption to other places of worship. The position on this remains
unclear. The Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights seem to have
shifted stance on several occasions. In July, after the bill became
law, they claimed that the churches have a special place in the
cultural life of the nation that other venues, being merely for
commercial gain, do not. This is, to say the least, arguable.
Earlier this year amendments were suggested by the Lords that would
exempt small-scale acoustic performances, which is after all the
position in Scotland and doesn’t seem to have irreparably damaged the
fabric of the nation, but the whips seemed to feel the usual threat to
their virility. Severe arm-twisting went on among the red benches and
on its return the bill passed through with various minor amendments,
many of which merely muddy the waters.
The actual bill is shot through with anomalies and the sooner it is
tested in the European Court of Human Rights the better. There is a
complex web of exemptions and exceptions so that small venues with less
than 200 capacity can have an exemption if the music is unamplified and
finishes by midnight, but only if the premises are already licensed.
Music that is incidental to other activity is exempt, as is music that
is integral to Morris dancing and similar activity. The strongest
measures are reserved for pubs and bars with amplified music, yet
incomprehensibly the same rules are not applied to big screen
entertainment. For the first time the law is extended to Private Clubs
and the Bill creates a new category of offence for the provision of
unlicensed 'entertainment facilities', which would include musical
instruments provided to members of the public for the purpose of
entertaining themselves, let alone an audience.
The detail on much of this remains unclear, at least to me, until the
guidance notes are issued, the local authorities creak into action, and
the law is challenged in the courts. Put simply it means that you no
longer have the right to access your heritage unless the government
licenses you to do so. No amount of blathering about relaxed regimes,
enlightened guidelines and beneficial local authorities can explain
away that significant fact.
And the one thing above all others that has shocked everyone about this
bill is this exemption of broadcast media. Yes, that’s right. Three
folksingers in a pub is a threat to public order and must be licensed
with all the rigour of the law. Two hundred passionate football fans
watching a crucial game, say a World Cup Qualifier against England,
wouldn’t and needn’t be. This must be true because ATCPO, the
Association of Chief Police Officers said so. It was their weight being
thrown against the opposition at the eleventh hour that caused the
resistance to crumble.
A final almost inexplicable change was the exempting of Morris dancers.
It is possible that this contempt for their ability to bother the law
might yet cause a revival in Morris dancing, but it is more likely to
see the perishing of their last street-cred tatters.
This article does not pretend to be an explanation of the
current practice as regards the Licensing
Act, but it shows some of the unease that I felt at the time, and
describes issues that I still
feel are matters of concern.
Philip Freeman
posted by kind permission of Planet
Planet is a bi-monthly magazine covering the arts, culture and politics
in Wales and beyond with features on and interviews with contemporary
Welsh artists and writers; political analysis, both of Welsh affairs
and international issues; poetry and fiction.
www.planet.org.uk
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