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.
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