Consented to say audibly (7)
I believe the answer is:
allowed
'consented' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'say audibly' is the wordplay.
'say' shows a homophone (sound like).
'audibly' becomes 'aloud' (I've seen this before).
'aloud' is a homophone of 'ALLOWED'.
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for allowed that I've seen before include "Acknowledged" , "Legitimate" , "Gave permission" , "Permitted and granted" , "Owned" .)