Creative and Cultural Industries: Impact of Visa and Immigration Policies

Debate between Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury and Lord Murray of Blidworth

Tuesday 25th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact that the United Kingdom’s visa and immigration policies have on the UK creative and cultural industries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is, and will continue to be, an attractive destination for top international talent in these fields. Our visa and immigration system has been designed to support, and is supporting, all areas of the United Kingdom’s thriving and expanding creative and cultural industries. It is a very generous, adaptive and flexible proposition from the department.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his response. As I think he was trying to say, and as the Chancellor recently said, the creative industries are one of the UK’s five high-growth priority sectors. Skills and talent from a global pool are essential to its success, but it is experiencing widespread workforce shortages from both here and abroad—exacerbated, of course, by Brexit. Does the Minister accept the concerns of the chief executive of Creative UK that the Migration Advisory Committee’s shortage occupation list, as a mechanism for addressing this problem, is not fit for its core purpose? Some occupations from the creative sectors already appear to have been deemed out of scope. Why? The recently published Creative Industries Sector Vision says:

“the Home Office, DCMS and industry will work together to maximise the effectiveness of existing immigration routes for the creative industries workforce”.

How is the Minister’s department planning to do this while at the same time limiting such an essential route?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I am afraid that I do not accept the noble Baroness’s proposition that we are, in some way, limiting access to the United Kingdom for creative workers. As I alluded to in my Answer, our domestic law allows musicians, entertainers, artists and their technical staff from non-visa national countries, such as EU member states, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to perform in the UK without requiring a visa. A non-visa national can stay one month without a visa if they are invited to the UK by a UK-based client or organisation and paid by a UK source, under the permitted paid engagement visitor rules. A non-visa national can stay three months without a visa if they have been assigned a certificate of sponsorship by a licensed sponsor, which is usually a UK company. A non-visa national can stay six months without a visa if performing at a permit-free festival; they are listed in the Immigration Rules and run from Glastonbury to Glyndebourne. All nationalities can apply for a 12-month stay, on a temporary work creative worker route visa, if they obtain a visa and have a certificate of sponsorship.