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DEA will not be repealed, Penrose gets live licensing brief
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 24 May 2010
Despite both Tories and Lib Dems – including top Liberal man Nick Clegg – expressing concerns about the ways the former Labour government’s Digital Economy Act was rushed onto the statute book earlier in the year, it seems unlikely anything in that eclectic bit of legislation will be repealed by the new government any time soon.
Despite Clegg saying during the election campaign that the Act should be scrapped and all of its measures – including the introduction of the anti-piracy three-strikes system – should be reconsidered afresh, the new coalition government’s manifesto, published last week, says nothing about reviewing the DEA.
OfCom’s consultation on how exactly three-strikes will work will presumably now continue as originally planned. Culture minister Ed Vaizey, meanwhile, will oversee the implementation of other parts of the Act.
As previously reported, the coalition’s grand plan does give some time to reforming the 2003 Licensing Act to reduce the red tape smaller venues must navigate in order to stage live music – something that appeared in the Lib Dem’s pre-election bumf, but which went unmentioned in the original Tory manifesto.
It was announced late last week that responsibility for doing just that will now fall on John Penrose, even though his exact role within the Department Of Culture, Media & Sport is more geared towards tourism and heritage than music.
