EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD) [V]]

My Lords, our creative industries make us a soft-power superpower and an economic powerhouse. They unlock innovation and provide social cohesion. They are gold dust, yet they are totally shafted by this deal.

From the beginning of the Brexit process, we called for the creative industries to be at the top table for negotiations. Clearly, this did not happen. Crucially, these industries rely on the ability to work and travel across Europe without the need for visas, yet there are no reciprocal arrangements for touring artists to move freely. They rely on the automatic recognition of qualifications, allowing professionals such as architects to continue to practise in the EU. Again, there are no reciprocal arrangements there. They rely on free movement for instruments without onerous and expensive carnets and border checks. They rely on the digital single market that protects our IP; we await details on new arrangements to ensure that we remain protected post Brexit. They rely on country of origin, whereby the mutual recognition of broadcasting licences has led to the UK being the leading hub in Europe for the sector. That is now gone.

These freedoms and agreements have facilitated mutually beneficial commercial and artistic opportunities, but they are no more. Can the Minister confirm that a data adequacy agreement will be made before the present bridging mechanism lapses? Will documentation for transporting musical equipment between Northern Ireland and Britain be needed? Will the trade fairs exemption for short-term business visits also be applicable for live artistic events, meaning no need for work permits? Will the Government seek an agreement for a visa-free cultural work passport that avoids the need to apply to each of the 27 EU countries for those who want to tour?

This deal is extremely bad for our creative sector.

Leveson Report

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a cross-party agreement on the way forward. However, as those who have lived through this debate in even more detail than I have will recall, we are attempting to build a much tougher self-regulatory principle of regulation for the press with the support of a royal charter. This is a very delicate process. Pulling the press along with a tougher system of self-regulation is not proving as easy as it might.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords, since the DCMS consideration of consultation responses to the royal charter sponsored by the Press Standards Board of Finance has finished, when will my right honourable friend the Secretary of State publish her advice about whether that royal charter should go forward to the Privy Council? I should point out that no less a person than Sir Tom Stoppard has said that a free press needs to be a respected press. It is about time that that was so.

First World War: Centenary

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is aimed at secondary schools. Of the £50 million allocated for the commemorations, £5 million has been targeted at secondary schools, with the intention that every secondary school in England will be supported in sending two students and one teacher to Commonwealth cemeteries on the continent associated with the local communities from which they are drawn. I should perhaps add that the advisory board which has now been set up for the commemoration of World War I is about to hold its first meeting in support of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It includes eight Members of the current House, including the noble Lord and me.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords, can I make a suggestion rather than ask a question?

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

I suggest that we use this opportunity to commemorate the women who played such a vital role in the First World War, working in the fire service, the police service and factories.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is absolutely part of what we intend to do. To illustrate what we are thinking of, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has suggested that on 4 August commemorations might take place at two of its cemeteries. The first is Brookwood Cemetery in England where a number of nurses who served in France are buried, as are soldiers from most Commonwealth countries who died in England while suffering from their wounds. The second is Saint Symphorien Cemetery outside Mons, which was established as a German war cemetery where the Germans buried the first British soldier killed in the First World War and where the last British soldier killed in the First World War was buried just after the Armistice was signed.