After drilling down into the 70-page DCMS stats on licensing, campaigners have also rubbished the Government's conclusion that the number of premises with live music provisions has increased by 2% in the last year.

At the heart of the debate is a licence anomaly, acknowledged by the Government, which suggests a venue can have authorisation for regulated entertainment without having authorisation to use entertainment facilities.

Only a fraction of premises with permission for live music actually have permission to use ...