Norfolk Schools (Public Entertainment) (Hansard, 26 June 1984)

§ Mr. Patrick Thompson (Norwich, North)

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak in this Adjournment debate about the application of licensing laws regarding public entertainment in schools in Norfolk. I make it clear that this matter is causing concern not only in Norfolk but in other parts of the country. I am also grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), for attending this debate at this late hour, and I am looking forward to his reply.

The villain of the piece is the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, part I and schedule 1. The first mention of this problem in the national press was under the headline, "Jowett's cause lost at Balliol".

It said: A law designed primarily to control public sex displays has brought to an end a century-old musical tradition at Balliol College, Oxford … The musical evening was started in 1884 by the college's eminent Victorian Master, Dr. Benjamin Jowett. Unfortunately, this matter is part of a deeper problem. Recently I was sent a list of Government requirements on local authorities over the past four years. There are 89 articles on the list, including the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. At a time when we are rightly trying to contain public expenditure, this flood of Government work emanating from Government Departments must be wrong.

I shall read extracts from letters from head teachers in Norfolk. First, a letter from the headmaster at the Larkman middle school in Norwich, writing to friends of the school, said: On behalf of the children, staff and governors of this school, I would have liked to invite you to our Carol Concert this Christmas. Unfortunately, the rigorous licensing requirements of the Local Authority (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, which came into force this year, have meant that schools are no longer exempt from the need to obtain a licence for public entertainment."

Another head teacher wrote to me saying: the Act's ramifications are causing distress and anxiety to many heads and PTAs … It is very sad that I am now expected to exclude people who are not parents, but normally very caring, interested and supportive to our school, because of a wretched licence. As I said, concern is not confined to schools in Norfolk.

The chairman of the Norfolk Federation of Parent Teachers Associations, Mr. Richard Bird, has shown me letters that he has received from as far away as Lancashire and Gwent demonstrating further dismay and confusion. The head teachers and colleagues in the country primary school in Alkborough, near Scunthorpe, have written to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister saying: How can all this be justified when the school premises are already passed as fit for normal school activities? My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary may wonder, particularly at this hour of the morning, how all this fuss started. It started in Norfolk with a letter to head teachers from the county education officer dated November 1983.

This letter states that: The previous legislation for licensing premises for music and dancing did not apply to premises that were used only 970 occasionally for such purposes and schools normally did not require a licence for such occasions as the annual P.T. A. dance. Schools are no longer exempt from the need to obtain a licence even if the premises are to be so used on only a single occasion … If admission to the event is confined to pupils and teachers, or pupils, teachers and parents of pupils, no licence would be required for it, but if admission is extended to others, then a licence would be required. From this time forward, concern in Norfolk schools has steadily increased. In correspondence with myself and other hon. Members, Ministers have given a slightly different interpretation of the Act, which if confirmed and amplified might reduce the concern and remove pressure that might otherwise arise for legislation to exempt schools from the provisions of the Act.

In a letter dated 2 April 1984 to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Powley), whom I am delighted to see supporting me this evening, my hon.

Friend the Minister said: it is unlikely that a district council would view an entertainment in a school hall and attended only by teachers, parents and others associated with the school, and their guests, as 'public' for the purposes of the 1982 Act. That is also the gist of a letter, dated 6 February 1984, that I received from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science. That was confirmed in an oral answer in the House on the following day.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary also stated in his letter that We have recently become aware that District Councils (the licensing authorities under this 1982 Act) seem to be taking a variety of approaches to the need for licensing of school premises and the evidence is by no means restricted to Norfolk. I regard that as further evidence of confusion. It justifies my decision to press for an Adjournment debate on the issue.

There are two major problems—the distinction between a public and private performance and, secondly, the difficulty of enforcing the provisions of the Act as they affect performances in schools.

In his letter of 2 April 1984, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for the Home Department repeated an assertion that I think is open to criticism. He said: It must be remembered that school halls, under the Education (School Premises) Regulations, are subject to safety requirements designed for the protection of the pupils and staff. The controlled environment of a gathering of pupils in the hall or of their parents and other persons with an interest in the school is very different from an event open to all members of the public where problems of disorder may arise or the weight of numbers attending may increase the risk of accidents and fire and impede the access of emergency vehicles should the need occur. As someone who knows something about schools, I do not think that that stands up to close examination. Of course, it is vital to ensure safety in schools. But the Act may not be suited for application to schools any more than it is suited to concerts and places of public worship, which are exempt from the regulations. I gather from a further letter from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science on 21 May 1984 that the Home Office is actively considering the issue of guidance to district councils clarifying the interpretation of the legislation in its application to schools and that they hope to let us have a draft of their proposals in about two weeks' time. I hope that my hon. Friend will reassure me tonight on that point.

As I said earlier, I have been in touch with the Norfolk Federation of Parent Teacher Associations, which is campaigning for schools to be exempt from the Act and also for the removal of the effective requirement for parents, in practice, to have to pay not only for the licence 971 but for the necessary improvements to the school hall to obtain that licence. Thousands of pounds are raised annually by parent-teacher associations. The effect of the Act may be a serious reduction in the money available for schools—money presently raised to pay for computers, pianos, minibuses and so on.

I agree with the editorial in the Eastern Evening News on Tuesday 20 March 1984 headlined "Release this stranglehold". The article stated: It does seem rather silly that schools should suddenly be penalised after years of staging fund-raising activities which are often vital to their smooth economic running. I hope that the Minister's reply will reassure me that there will be no need for hon. Members at any time to contemplate amendment of the Act. However, it is clear that the present situation is unsatisfactory. After all, there is an important distinction between schools, on the one hand, and theatres and concern halls, on the other. It is vital that safety standards in any public building are high, but there may be better ways of achieving the conditions. Indeed, if time permitted, I could suggest ways to achieve that if schools were exempted from the provisions of the Act. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that there is genuine concern in Norfolk and elsewhere that the Act needs clarification or is faulty in its application to schools.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor)

During his relatively brief time here, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) has shown commendable diligence on behalf of his constituents on a range of issues and has shown a considerable ability to follow through a problem, even a most detailed one. That is absolutely the right way to perform one's duties in the House, and I congratulate him warmly on the way in which he presented an interesting point to us tonight.

I wish, as he must, that he had chosen an evening when events would have brought us on rather earlier, but that is not a matter within his control. I agree with him that this matter is well worthy of being raised and is one on which, I know, he has the support of a number of schools inside and outside his constituency. I also pay tribute to the valiant effort of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Powley) in being here. He remains silent, but he is here in support, proving Milton's precept that They also serve who only stand and wait. It may be helpful in dealing with the cogent points that my hon. Friend has raised if I begin by explaining why it was found necessary to introduce, in January of last year, a mandatory licensing code for indoor public entertainments. Throughout the Greater London area, a uniform system of public entertainments licensing had existed since 1965. In the case of premises elsewhere in England and Wales, the licensing of public music and dancing was governed by a patchwork quilt of different enactments.

In some parts of the country, the responsibility for issuing such licences lay with the licensing justices under the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1890 or with local authorities under local act provisions. In some places there was no control at all and in yet more places—since what control there was derived from local Acts passed before the reorganisation of local government in 1974a situation existed where a licence was required in some 972 parts of a local authority area but not in others. Some of these local Acts dated back to the end of the 19th century. It was, to say the least, a somewhat anarchic and unsatisfactory situation.

The decision was, therefore, taken to establish a new and uniform code of licensing. That decision was made after careful thought and in response to representations from the local authority associations, which were as conscious as we were about the difficulties that this patchwork arrangement imposed on everyone who looked, for reasons other than just bureaucratic tidiness, for some kind of orderly and consistent thread running through the whole country in arrangements of this type.

We also took into account the fact most of the recent local authority Bills had included provisions for controlling these entertainments, showing that there was widespread recognition of the need for change. The code that we are discussing is contained in schedule 1 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. Its purpose is to ensure that, for the protection of the public, premises used for public music and dancing and like entertainments have adequate standards of safety and hygiene.

It is important to be clear about exactly what types of indoor entertainment require to be licensed by district councils under the 1982 Act. These are public dancing, music or entertainment of a like kind and entertainment which consists of, or includes, any public contest, exhibition or display of boxing, wrestling, judo, karate or any similar sport. There is a common misapprehension, particularly among those who provide entertainment on school premises, that the licensing code extends to events such as quiz shows, debates, sales of work or even meetings of parent-teacher associations. Although I am bound to say that, once a Bill passes from Parliament as an Act, it is for the courts to decide what is meant by the words in the statute entertainment of a like kind to the best of my knowledge they have not yet been called upon to do so and it is safe and proper for me to venture the opinion from the Dispatch Box that a licence is generally required under the 1982 Act only when the entertainment consists of music, dancing or a sport of a martial nature. In particular, the performance of a play, in which music is an incidental ingredient, as with the introduction, interval or conclusion, is exempted from the requirement to hold a public entertainments licence, but may have to be considered under the Theatres Act 1968.

I shall refer more specifically to the matter of public entertainments held on school premises. The provisions of the licensing code apply to school premises just as they do, for example, to hotels or public houses. To the best of my knowledge, no exemption from licensing requirements has ever existed in respect of schools. If, before January 1983, any particular school did not require a licence to hold a public entertainment, this was almost certainly because no general licensing power existed in that part of the country or because the local licensing justices interpreted the provisions of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1980 to mean that no licence was required in respect of a building in which public entertainments were held only occasionally.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North has suggested eloquently that schools in his area have found their activities hampered by the 1982 Act's licensing provisions. He has urged upon us the need to issue advice 973 to district councils on the definition of "public" in the term "public entertainment", stating clearly that there are differences of opinion between local authorities on what constitutes a public entertainment.

The problem of defining when an entertainment becomes public and thus requires a licence is one that has led several district councils and others concerned with entertainment on school premises to seek guidance from the Home Office. I want to be helpful on that point. It seems to be a proper request. I venture the caveat that interpretation is a matter for the courts, but I shall do my best, subject to that proviso. There is no statutory definition in the 1982 Act of what constitutes a public entertainment, nor have the courts as yet considered that point.

There have, however, been a number of judgments arising from earlier legislation which can be helpful. I shall refer to two such judgments. The first is that in the case of Gardner v. Morris, in 1961, in which it was held that the test of whether premises are open to the public is not whether one or more members of the public are present but whether, on the evidence, any reputable member of the public, on paying for admission, could attend. The second case, that of Severn View Social Club and Institute Ltd. v. Chepstow Licensing Justices, in 1968, helps to clarify who should, or rather who should not, be regarded as a member of the public. It was held that, for entertainments licensing purposes, guests of members of a bona fide club were not members of the public and that a licence was accordingly not required for their entertainment.

Taken together, those cases are helpful, because if we apply the judgments to entertainments on school premises, we can go some way towards resolving the sort of difficulties that have arisen. In the case of entertainments, such as concerts and dances, which are promoted by a parent-teacher association and attended only by members of the association and their guests, it would seem, in the light of the judgments to which I have referred, that no entertainments licence is required. Similarly, an end-ofterm concert or similar entertainment promoted by the school and attended only by pupils, parents, teachers and their guests is unlikely to require a licence. I stress the word "guests" because it introduces the element that worried my hon. Friend—people who have no formal contact with the concert but are guests of parents. What would be significant, however, would be the advertising of the entertainment to the public much more widely than that and the presence of members of the public who merely obtained tickets as a result of such advertising without any connection with someone who, because he or she is a parent, could be said to be connected with the school. If that were to happen an entertainment licence might be needed. The salient point is not the nature of the premises in which the entertainment is provided but who is permitted to attend.

My officials have discussed the matter with the office of the director of administration of the city council. I am glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend that the council completely agrees with our view that where attendance at a concert or dance is restricted to members of a PTA and their guests, there is no need for a public entertainments licence. With the greatest respect to some of the headmasters and others with whom he has had dealings, 974 while I am anxious to state the law with precision it is important that they for their part do not seek to exaggerate the difficulties that the law imposes upon them. Some of the points that my hon. Friend read out from his letters teetered on the brink of doing that.

Armed with the report of the debate and with what Mr. Hyde, the deputy director of administration, has told my officials, it can be seen that there is room for a commonsense solution. We do not need to think about draconian measures to change what we believe is a perfectly commonsense law in order to reach the commonsense conclusion that we all want to reach in relation to the problem of school entertainments. No one should want to be a martyr on this issue. I assure my hon. Friend that neither the Government nor the local council want to cause schools difficulties.

On a number of occasions my hon. Friend has properly asked whether we will issue general advice to local authorities on what constitutes a public entertainment in terms of activities promoted on school premises. We have considered the point that he raised with great care. We are in his debt for his persistence on that. We do intend to do so. Therefore, he can report back to his constituents that he has had real success tonight. As a result of the efforts spearheaded by my hon. Friend we think that it would be right to issue general advice that will benefit others. A draft has been prepared and is now being discussed between Home Office officials and those of the Department of Education and Science. I hope that that circular will be issued fairly soon. I stress again that that can only be for guidance. We cannot usurp the functions of the courts. There is no question of our requiring a local authority to follow a particular line. That does not lie within our power. On the whole, we find that in other areas such guidelines are received in the spirit in which they are intended and are helpful to local authorities.

I hope that in this brief debate I have managed to put my hon. Friend's mind at rest on some of the points that he has raised. Having set out why we felt the need in the previous Parliament to make such changes, I think that he understands that that was not done from some narrow, bureaucratic desire to interfere with the legitimate activities of schools, but was forced upon us by the unsatisfactory patchwork quilt arrangements for public entertainments that existed, or in some cases did not exist, around the country.

While inevitably in all new legislation there may be some problems, there is a danger that they can he exaggerated. Given good sense on both sides, those can be resolved. I am satisfied from the inquiries that I have made that there is a great desire on the part of my hon. Friend's local authority to show good sense. I hope that he will go to his headmasters armed with commonsense guidelines which we believe are a proper and sensible interpretation of the Act and that using those people will be able to enjoy, as they always have done, entertainments in schools without, as parents, members of the PTA or guests, feeling that they thereby run foul of the law or are put to unnecessary expense.