Jeremy Corbyn Backs Plan To Support Independent Venues

Government's rebate to be extended if Labour win election...

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has backed plans to support independent music venues.

The country has lost a swathe of independent venues over the past decade, as shifts in social behaviour combine with rising costs to squeeze small venues out.

Schemes such as Independent Venue Week have been launched to redress the balance, with Jeremy Corbyn aiming to extend this.

Speaking to the Independent, he said: "What you have is a number of independent venues, sometimes pubs, cafes, so on, that have become almost informal live music venues, and the small cafe does well and 'hey presto' along comes Costa, Starbucks, Nero or something to take it over."

"(It's) the same with pubs, which are often very reluctant to have live music on. Those live venues are absolutely crucial to the future of the music scene. So the £1,000 pub-licensing rebate is a good thing – we want to extend that a lot further."

The Labour leader continued: "What I’m interested in is the sense of expression that music gives people, hence the points I’ve been making endlessly about musical instruments children for children. Any teacher will tell you that a child learning music at school is likely to do better at a lot of other things because there is a discipline in learning music, a sense of rhythm, a sense of timing involved…"

"Most children live in places where there isn’t space to put a piano if they’ve got one… our schools have often diminished the number of orchestras… cut all that back, so I am very keen to change that."

Check out the interview HERE.

Get involved with Independent Venue Week HERE.

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