Live Music Bill [HL]

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

My Lords, that late and much loved comedian Harry Worth may not have been in the top flight of the 20th century’s great philosophers and thinkers, but he had some sage advice for anyone foolish or brave enough to speak in public. Harry said with great insight, “Never worry if the audience walks out during your performance—the time to worry is when they walk towards you”. Well, thanks to one of the many great traditions of this House, there are Doorkeepers deployed throughout this Chamber to deter your Lordships from walking in any direction while I offer these maiden words. That is a great relief to me, if less of a comfort to your Lordships.

It is customary to thank all those who work in this House for making new Peers —and I am no exception—so very welcome and I do so wholeheartedly now, but with one small caveat. Those who patrol the doors and corridors of your Lordships’ House to such great effect have brought me, quite late in life, to a stark self-realisation: I have absolutely no sense of direction whatever. Each time I step out of one Room or other in this great Palace, the nearest staff member is quick to anticipate the glazed look in my eyes and tactfully steps in to save me from my fourth fruitless lap of the Chamber. So I have more reason than most to be grateful for their support and direction. As Blanche DuBois might have said in one of the greatest curtain lines ever written for the stage at the end of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, I have always put my trust in the kindness of strangers.

Still on a personal note, I would like to be allowed to record how proud I feel to be following in the footsteps of my two late and noble uncles, Lords Grade and Delfont. They gave me so much to live up to, not just by their achievements in the entertainment industry but, more importantly, the immaculate reputations and the good will they engendered throughout their careers. Along with my late father Leslie, these three remarkable brothers really taught me everything I know. Unfortunately, they did not teach me everything they knew, so I am still working for a living.

And so to the Bill under debate this morning. Let me state from the outset that I speak in full support of my noble friend and erstwhile colleague Lord Clement-Jones in his legislative quest to repair the unforeseen damage that the Licensing Act 2003 has caused. There is overwhelming support for the proposed reform of this Act, since it threatens musical life in our nations at its most fragile point—grass-roots level.

No doubt in the case of the 2003 Act, the road to these unintended consequences was paved with good intentions, with or without musical accompaniment along the way. I can certainly understand the need to give the authorities the necessary powers to curtail public nuisance and noise disturbance caused by unruly and unlicensed events of scale. No one wants a Glastonbury-style rock festival to explode on the local allotments but in the event the Act contains such wide powers that, as we have heard today, it threatens to criminalise even small groups of unlicensed music lovers huddled together in a public place, giving pleasure to but a handful of innocent lovers of live music. In the iPod and headphone world that we inhabit today, surely we should be doing everything to encourage and promote live music.

I have had a long career nurturing and spotting talent. If I know anything—I hasten to say that this is not a question I should like to see the House divide on—it is that fledgling talent needs somewhere—anywhere—to find an audience. Stars have been spotted as buskers, bus drivers, at amateur talent contests, village halls, pubs and social clubs—anywhere where they might find an audience to help them practise their talent and hone their skills. Rightly, we are proud in these islands of our great musical tradition, whether your Lordships’ taste is for Gilbert and Sullivan or Gilbert O’Sullivan, The Beatles or Benjamin Britten, Sir Simon Rattle or the Singing Postman of blessed memory. They all had to start somewhere. 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.

Under the current Act, without a licence, you can tune up and get banged up. I admit that there are some purveyors of alleged modern music that I would happily see locked up—preferably in a sound-proof cell. But, as your Lordships especially understand, hard cases make bad law. The 2003 Licensing Act is bad law. It is beyond the credible to argue that the legislators’ intention was actually to stifle the small pleasure of sharing live music with a small audience in any public space.

I hope that one or two of your Lordships may recall, with me, that the age of rock and roll was spawned by what became known as the skiffle era—Lonnie Donegan, and all that. Tea chests, a broom handle and a line of string made a double bass, and Mum’s old washboard and thimbles sufficed for percussion. That DIY musical movement liberated generations of kids who found that they could make their own music at virtually no cost. All they needed was an audience. It spawned a great British musical tradition and movement which put Britain in the forefront of live popular musical culture—a tradition that continues today.

In those days, no one had to care if halls and rooms above the coffee bars were licensed or not. From this amateur beginning, Britain gave the world the Stones, the Beatles, the Who and a whole hall of fame of music industry legends. As they set out on their roads to world fame, they performed anywhere they could find a public room and a few people—no licence required but a licence to inspire.

I ask your Lordships to consider how many of those legends who have brought such benefits to Great Britain plc would have had these opportunities had the 2003 Licensing Act been in force in those days. This Bill does not offer a simplistic anything-goes antidote to the 2003 Act. It does not propose going from the heavily prescriptive requirements of the Act to a free-for-all. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has presented a Bill that contains some very well thought through protections and checks that offer real powers to the authorities where there is unacceptable abuse. These, I believe, are more appropriate and better fit the original intentions of the 2003 Act. I support these reforms wholeheartedly.

In conclusion, I offer my grateful thanks to your Lordships for your patient attention and for resisting the urge to walk in any direction. One last question: when I exit the Chamber for the Peers’ Dining Room, do I turn left or right?