Hamish Birchall Bulletin
Tuesday 25th September 2007 - Licensing Act: Brown admits problems and hints at changes
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=7&storycode=57047
The Publican also reports that a government review of the Act is due to be completed by the end of this year.
It is not clear whether the problems refered to by Brown include the regulation of entertainment, and specifically live music. However, his tone would seem to be more conciliatory than the defiant licensing rhetoric of the Blair administration. It must give some hope to the music industry, and musicians' organisations, that some of their recommended changes, such as the small gigs exemption, will be seriously considered. The Musicians' Union position of 11 June - that 'an opportunity to comprehensively revise the Act is not likely to occur for a number of years' - would seem now to be out of date. See MU press release:
http://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/site/cms/v4_newsArticleView.asp?article=716
The prime minister's comments on the Licensing Act were apparently made during a BBC Radio 4 Today interview yesterday, Monday 24 September. For some reason the interview is not available using the website's 'Listen Again' feature:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/monday.shtml
Hamish Birchall
--