Deregulation Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

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.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, there have been moments during the debates on this Deregulation Bill when I have been forced to ask the Government why on earth they are bothering to get rid of some bits and pieces when they will not have any effect at all. That is why I find myself particularly encouraged by the amendment here.

We can draw the sort of people who do not like busking very simply: they are general kill-joys. I have always thought that life is divided between those who are life enhancers and those who are life destroyers. One of the problems is that many life destroyers are worthy, honourable and decent members of society, but they are deeply boring and therefore entirely to be opposed. My problem with this amendment is that it does not go far enough. It is a disgrace that there are so many bits from Acts which can be used against buskers by local authorities and by the Metropolitan Police.

I draw my noble friend’s attention to the phrase “busking-related offences”. I have spent some time, since we last discussed this, trying to imagine an offence which was busking related and not an offence in any other way. I am quite an imaginative person and I do not have too pure a mind but, even putting those two things together, I have so far been unable to discover any offence which is both busking related and not covered by something else in the statute. To go back to “So who said it?”, I may now say something which many will object to, for it was said by the police —well, they would, would they not? The Metropolitan Police always have a reason for leaving any way which enables them to do what they want.

I spent hours and hours discussing the simple business of applying to the space outside your Lordships’ House the same rules as were applied by the House of Commons to the space outside it. I cannot tell your Lordships how much of that time was made up of people explaining why it was utterly impossible, and would probably cause the collapse of western civilisation, that the extent from one to the other should be done. I know that it has been a mere six or nine months since we passed that provision, but I have not noticed any real effect of the kind of major disaster since that small change. I feel that we are in the same position here. I do not know why we should have this. Indeed, because we have been over this before, in the previous debates I thought that there was no reasonable explanation as to why these two provisions should not be removed. I say to my noble friend—and he is indeed a friend—that, to dissuade us from this amendment, the following proof has to be shown.

First, it has to be shown that there is something in the presence of these provisions in the law which is unique. It should be different and cover something which nothing else covers. If we cannot prove that first thing, then of its nature the Deregulation Bill says that we should get rid of it. That is why we have a Deregulation Bill. It is what the Government have been wittering on about: how we have got to have deregulation because there are too many regulations. However, if this is a regulation that shall be kept, it must be seen to cover something which nothing else covers.

Secondly, it must be shown to cover it appropriately: in other words, not to give powers to the police, or to the miserable local authorities such as Camden, which will be misused either in an excess of energy, as certainly took place when people were bundled into a police van in Leicester Square, or by a determination to respond to any complaint, however pathetic, of the kind which explains Camden’s treatment of buskers. It has to be necessary and appropriate.

Lastly, it seems to me—and I hope that my noble friend will be able to explain this, too—that it has to be relevant to today. Many things which were appropriate to yesterday we would today find unacceptable. London is the greatest city in the world. It is the only “world city” and we are immensely lucky to live in this great city. We should be thrilled every day about London, but it is like that because of its variety and difference—its mix of different races and communities, and the like. It is the great triumph of immigration. When people talk about immigration, I tell them to come to London and see what immigration can do to a great city. It is a thrill to be here. In those circumstances, though, this great centre in the European Union—its capital, in many ways—needs as much busking as possible. There are some miserable places where more buskers would cheer us enormously. Anything that inhibits busking unnecessarily seems to be not of our day, and not of today’s London. The idea that buskers should find it more difficult in London than they do in Liverpool seems to be manifestly barmy.

I hope that my noble friend can rise to the occasion and, if he cannot answer those three things, say that he will take this away and get rid of the nonsense.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

It is really unfortunate to have drawn the straw following that contribution. The noble Lord has spoilt my day, but that was a very nice way of doing it; I thank him very much.

I was going to start with a little riff on why the true author of this amendment was being withheld from us, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned that he had not been able to be in Committee. It is an irony beyond irony that the first amendment in his name was the rather beautifully named “parasitic packaging” amendment, for which he produced a parasitic package—the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, who not only replicated every word and phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would have used but did so in such a brilliant and concise way that he immediately won the hearts of all of us in Committee. We welcomed back the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, for round two, on the amendment to remove Section 73, which was not quite so successful but was pretty good, and then he went on to busking. Busking was a tour de force; it was almost as good as what we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, because he listed every one of the blooming regulations—I think there were 11 of them—that we are told are inhibiting busking in our greatest world city. I have to say to him, though, that he had obviously missed three because the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has now done even more research and produced another few that he has added to the list.

I absolutely buy what the noble Lord, Lord Deben is selling today, that this is a ridiculous farrago of regulation that needs to be sorted out. There has to be some clarity about what the authorities want out of the regulations that they wish to put forward. There has to be some sense of equity between those who wish to perform and those who wish to listen, and the rights and responsibilities of neighbourhoods in terms of pollution and other things. There has to be the clarity of a single piece of legislation that everyone can refer to.

When the Minister responded in Committee, he used a ridiculous phrase, a chilling remark that I still sometimes wake up and think about in the middle of the night:

“the Metropolitan Police have a desire to retain necessary powers”.—[Official Report, 11/11/14; col. GC 48.]

Come on. It is so easy to say that, and so difficult to get up the energy to say, “Okay, let’s know what these things are”. What are these necessary powers, and what exactly is this desire that the police seem to bear in their corporate bosom to do something about those who wish to entertain and perform in a way that I would have thought to most people would be a very appropriate thing to do in such a major city?

It is up to the Minister to come back on this amendment. I hope that he can step up to the mark and give us a bravura performance, on whatever instrument he chooses, but he should pick up on one point that was raised in discussion in Committee by my noble friend Lord Rooker, who said that there is an obvious and clear remedy for this. The Law Commission exists to tidy up exactly this sort of arrangement, and the Minister said that he would go off and consult on whether it was the appropriate body. First, of course, he said that it was not the appropriate body, but then he was told in no uncertain terms—because that is what my noble friend does—that the commission does indeed look at these things; it is quite happy to update, refresh and reform legislation or regulation that needs it. Surely that is the way forward, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister—in music.

--- Later in debate ---

In terms of the London Local Authorities Act, we believe that local authorities are best placed to weigh up rights and freedoms for the communities and individuals in their area. However, I want to make quite clear that a council can introduce this licensing only if it has reason to believe that there is a problem as a result of busking. It is for local authorities to look at the local circumstances, decide whether there is a problem and then consider how to act. I particularly noted with interest my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s comments on the work under way in London, which I believe is in relation to a code of practice for buskers. That could be a very good way forward in maintaining good relations between those who busk, councils, the police, local businesses and residents. It shows—as the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said—a proper coming together so that, in practice, everyone can live agreeably side by side.

[Lord Deben]

I do not know whether my noble friend will understand this, but it is often difficult to know the division between Westminster and Camden and between Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Unless we have a London-wide agreement, it puts buskers in an extremely difficult position. I am sure that my noble friend, like me, has wrongly put money in a parking meter because different local authorities have different times for parking. Is it not sensible to say that if there are going to be special local authority arrangements, they should at least cover the whole of the central part of London so that people do not need to take a local authority map to discover that in Camden they would be arrested but in Westminster—a very good council—they would not?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

That is extremely helpful of my noble friend as it allows me to reinforce the efforts of the excellent Mayor of London as the honest broker in trying to get a London-wide code of practice. I think that there have been very constructive discussions with local authorities. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones will have more detail on that than I do. However, I think that that is precisely the way forward that my noble friend Lord Deben would find most agreeable.

Busking is undoubtedly a legitimate activity which often contributes to the vibrancy of a local area, and, per se, we do not believe that it does need control. However, it is important that backstop powers are available for specific circumstances. I know that this will not suit many of my noble friends but I hope that I have explained our reasons. Picking up the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, we have looked at this with the Law Commission. I hope that, on that basis, and for the other reasons I have given, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.