My Lords, I certainly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to repeal this legislation and agree with everything he said. The point about those two sets of legislation, one old and one much more recent, is that they are blunt instruments that deliberately set out to penalise buskers and therefore—this is an important point—do not get to the bottom of what the problem or complaint against them might be, or whether there is one.
The licensing of buskers in London allowed by the second piece of legislation referenced in the amendment, Part V of the London Local Authorities Act 2000, is an extremely unsatisfactory solution all round, and the introduction of licences in Camden was a knee-jerk reaction to complaints. The licences are expensive and there is the threat of heavy penalties and the power forcibly to sell off instruments, but buskers move around the country and it should be a reasonable assumption that they can expect the same measure of treatment wherever they are, as there ought to be similar expectations of their behaviour wherever they are in the country.
Last year, in an article in the Guardian, Munira Mirza, deputy mayor of London for education and culture said:
“A myriad of regulations in different parts of the city are causing confusion. Some local authorities are imposing licensing fees which can make it prohibitive for many musicians … Busking is a crucial part of the music eco-system in the capital; a chance to develop and grow in front of the public”.
I hope that the Minister will agree that the solution to that is not catch-all legislation but guidelines produced on the ground as a result of sensitive investigations between buskers, councillors and local
people. Jonny Walker, the busker who heads up the Keep Streets Live! campaign, has done a lot of work on that—successfully with Liverpool and he is now working with Canterbury and elsewhere.
The GLA is now producing its own guidelines, with input from Jonny Walker, and it would probably be helpful if the Minister, if he has not already had a preview, were to see the guidelines when they are ready. I say that in part because the proper overall solution is national guidelines, so that every busker and member of the public knows where they stand, wherever they are in the country.
Of course, buskers have responsibilities, just like any user of or participant in public space, but legislation already exists to deal with specifics—as the GLA guidelines make clear, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has described in detail. That is what should be used as back-up, not this heavy-handed legislation which goes in all guns blazing. The question of the quality of buskers should not be an issue. We have all heard some who are pretty dire and then we hear some who are amazing, and many who are in-between. The issue is, rather, about public space being used as it is intended to be used—which is, to spell it out, as public space—and spontaneous music should be a part of that.
In this context, I remind the House of the long debates it had a year ago on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which is now of course an Act. It carefully drew the line between nuisance and annoyance, with music made in streets and parks being cited as an example that is perhaps annoying to some, but not to all. I am not necessarily saying that that legislation is appropriate to be used for buskers either, if it becomes another knee-jerk threat that precedes the use of guidance. Public space is an important aspect of our democracy. How sensitively we negotiate that space is a mark of how democratic our solutions will be.