Licensing Act

I am grateful to you, Miss Begg, and to others for allowing me to speak in the debate. I apologise once again to the Minister and others, because I have to address a meeting at Birmingham university this evening. I realise, though, that under the current regime, were I to play a musical instrument in that venue I could be arrested, so I declare an interest in advance of my arrival in Birmingham. For me, the issue is about keeping music live. I am a great lover of music and, as some hon. and right hon. Members know, I play the harmonica. Using nothing but my musical talents and my blues harp, I have emptied pubs up and down mid-Wales, but I am happy to say that others are rather more adept at playing musical instruments than me. My big concern is the limitation on small venues being able to give a starting opportunity for performance artists up and down the land. Outstanding performers, such as Kate Rusby, Roy Harper, Cara Dillon and the late John Martyn, all made their life and reputation in those small venues. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame is known to get the guitar out occasionally and play bars in my locality. That is what performance art is all about. It is not about paperwork, it is not about red tape, it is about giving people the opportunity to express themselves in artistic form. In that sense, to be restricted by bureaucracy is the absolute antithesis of what such artists seek to do. The bureaucracy may be well intentioned, but the purpose it serves is nothing but damaging in making it more difficult for venues to operate, often on an ad hoc basis. Indeed, the likes of Andy Kershaw and the late John Peel discovered many artists ad hoc, by coming across individuals and bands with superb capability in a musical situation just because they saw a sign outside a pub saying, "Live music tonight". In my area there are bands such as Smoke like a Fish and Up All Night—with Brian perhaps one of the most talented singers of his generation—who do not intend to get famous for their performing but do enjoy entertaining local people. That, to me, is what it is all about. The Government have not always looked too supportive of live music. To quote the words of the band Roots,""And a minister said his vision of hell""Is three folk singers in a pub near Wells."" I know for a fact that the Minister enjoys performance arts and loves live music, so I am optimistic that the new regime will use common sense and heed the concerns that have been raised. For those reasons, I ask the Minister to take on board the cross-party consensus that he has heard so far in defence of live music and in support of the small venues that are the bottom rungs of the ladder, often not to fame but to a lifetime of performance in a local community. I recently saw a band called Toy Hearts, which is one of the best blue grass bands that I have ever seen in Britain. The band is growing, but it still plays the small venues because the band members love to entertain and to perform.