Creative Industries

Lord Colwyn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colwyn]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter for initiating this debate. I take this opportunity to remind your Lordships of the significant contribution of jazz to economic, educational and cultural life at all levels. I declare an interest as co-chairman of the All-Party Jazz Appreciation Group. We are hosting the start of the London Jazz Festival with some live music on the Terrace next Wednesday. I am also a very occasional player, a patron of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and a member of the Musicians Union.

There is an active jazz scene in all major UK cities. Musicians with established reputations and young musicians, many with great flair and originality, seek a serious audience that can understand and enjoy their music. They perform in a variety of settings, from pubs, clubs, arts centres, hotels, ballrooms, village halls, restaurants and local arts festivals to high-profile events at the nation's most prestigious concert venues. Many UK jazz musicians have developed international reputations for live performance and have recordings that are seen and bought by a worldwide audience. Every year there are jazz festivals all over the country, many featuring some of the finest jazz musicians in the world. More than 3 million people patronise these events, with five times that number expressing a definable interest in jazz.

While jazz continues to attract these audiences, 80 per cent of jazz musicians earn less than £25,000 a year. This is not helped now by the current economic climate, when there seems to be an increasing public reluctance to pay for music. Yet falling CD sales in a download culture are having a smaller impact on jazz income than might have been expected, and ticket sales and public and private subsidy have all showed modest but significant increases.

There is a thriving small-scale recording scene among British jazz musicians with widespread and growing use of the internet to sell recorded music. A different kind of jazz venue has emerged, located in a church, library, museum or community centre in response to the red tape challenge to pub gigs imposed by the new licensing laws. Jazz festivals have also expanded and brought new money.

My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has been successful with his Live Music Bill, which has completed its passage in this House, but the current situation over the licensing of live music, which has such a detrimental effect on young musicians, is utterly confusing. Licensing Minister, John Penrose, has described live music restrictions as “mostly bonkers red tape” and suggested that plans to cut red tape for live music are essential but out of his hands and dependent on consent from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office.

The only arguable justification for a licensing regime pre-emptively criminalising the provision of live music, subject to prior consent from the public or the local authority, or both, is where there is the potential for a significant negative impact on the local community that cannot be adequately regulated by existing legislation. This is clearly not the case for the vast majority of small gigs taking place within reasonable hours. It is gradually becoming clear that the red tape is being retained for small gigs in bars and restaurants under the Government’s sweeping “deregulation” proposals published in September.

It would be helpful to have a definitive statement on licensing and small venue exemption. Even if the entertainment licensing requirement is abolished, it seems to me that live music licence conditions will in fact remain in pubs, bars, restaurants and any other premises with an alcohol licence, however small. Such conditions often include restrictions on performer numbers, genres, times or days of performance, with the onus on the licensee to pay to apply to have these removed. It can cost £89 for a minor variation or several hundred pounds for a full variation, with the final decision remaining with the council. The promise is to get rid of the red tape. The Live Music Bill of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones represents the only genuine deregulatory measure in the legislative pipeline for small-scale performances of live music. Earlier this year, I asked my noble friend the Minister whether she could clarify this situation. May I repeat my request for clarification?

The annual turnover of the jazz sector of the British music industry is in excess of £88 million. The report by Jazz Services, as part of its Arts Council development project, found that sales of CDs through shops, websites and at gigs reached almost £40 million, while ticket sales for jazz concerts and festivals were worth £22.5 million. That makes it an important creative industry and one that would benefit from an understandable licensing policy.