Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)

My Lords, I rise to speak for the first time on this Bill, and I apologise to the House for doing so rather late in the day. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has just explained why I have not been participating actively before: for the last year or so I have been undertaking a review of live electronic music, commissioned by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the House of Commons. He referred to one of the 50 recommendations in that excellent report, which I commend to noble Lords to study carefully. It is exactly as the noble Earl has just said: that the UK Government should embed the agent of change principle in planning legislation in England, following Scotland’s example. That is a key part of it. I will just say the following on the Government’s Motion G and the amendment to it in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I pay tribute to my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, who originally introduced the successful Private Member’s Bill many years ago in the House of Commons, which got the ball rolling, shall we say, on the whole agent of change issue around music venues and got it strengthened in guidance. That was a welcome step forward. However, even at the time I remember him saying to me, “This will not be enough; we will need a statutory provision eventually”. I therefore very much welcome the engagement there has been from my noble friend the Minister, and the fact that the Government have acknowledged that this is not currently working effectively in practice and that it needs strengthening, and made clear commitments to do that within the National Planning Policy Framework. That is an extremely welcome move. However, I still have the view—I would not have said so in the review—that putting the agent of change principle around music venues in the Bill and making it a statutory provision will ultimately need to happen. Without that, there will always be the issues which the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, so effectively outlined for those people operating music venues. Having said that, I would have preferred any amendment that was put down—I mentioned this to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh—to replicate the Scottish position, which is specifically about noise nuisance caused by music venues. It is not about church bells, cockerels in the morning or living next door to a pig farm; it is about a specific problem that really needs to be dealt with, where an existing music venue produces noise but is operating legally, and a developer decides to move in next door and then expects that existing business to pick up the mitigating costs for any nuisance that might be caused to residents moving into the flats, houses or whatever they are. There is a danger, if you draw this too wide, that that principle will be diluted. I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response to the debate. It remains my view that this should be a statutory provision, but I am very pleased that the Government are acknowledging that there is a problem, because this is not working currently, and that they have already committed to responding in due course to all the recommendations in my report.