EU-UK Summit: Visa Waiver Agreement

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I can reassure my noble friend. She raises very important points about some of the failings and inadequacies of the arrangements that came through the original discussions, which are absolutely critical. I reassure my noble friend that, as well as Minister Bryant visiting counterparts in Europe, officials are engaging on a regular basis. Obviously, consultation with the sector is paramount. We need to make sure that, in moving forward and achieving the reset and rebalance, we put the needs of everyone on the table and make sure that we do not leave anyone out of the future discussions.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, as was said by the two previous speakers, the results of Brexit are causing absolute havoc with the abilities of our creatives to tour. I want to pick up the cabotage rules, which limit the number of stops a British vehicle can make in the EU to three. We hear a lot about rock tours, but actually our orchestras are being severely affected by this. The Royal Philharmonic says that the resources it is losing are directly impacting on its education programme. Can the Minister assure us that this is on the agenda in the UK-EU reset talks?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. We have discussed cabotage in this Chamber before. It is extremely complex. I do not know how it could have come about that it was not foreseen that having to stop at all the different borders of EU countries would not present an enormous problem.

This issue is certainly on the agenda generally and is the subject of discussions. I look forward to the outcome of many of these discussions, and particularly the outcome of the summit itself, which is going to be a very important and wider moment in terms of bringing politicians and officials together on a whole range of issues.