Musicians and Creative Professionals: Working in the European Union

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Clancarty, not just on securing today’s debate but on his energy and resilience in keeping these matters so firmly on the agenda. The nature of this QSD means that this debate is inevitably structured in the form of a theme and variations, which is probably fitting giving its relationship to music. My noble friend has comprehensively set out so many of the themes in his excellent speech; all we have to do is extemporise on one or more of them in our allotted time. But I will attempt to do a little more, suggesting ways in which the current dissonance might shift towards consonance and even resolution.

The extent of the challenges resulting from the omission of any provision for the touring of creative professionals and their support staff has been masked to date by the pandemic. But, as touring starts up again, we are seeing tangible evidence of impacts across four key areas.

First, the absence of a universal visa waiver agreement means that different EU members can treat UK artists and their staff in different ways, creating a complex and costly regulatory landscape, particularly in the case of multi-country tours. Secondly, the costs associated with an ATA carnet are proving to be prohibitive, especially for larger operations such as orchestras, whose instruments and equipment can be valued at millions of pounds. Thirdly, cabotage restrictions, as we have heard, permit only three internal movements in the EU for UK hauliers over 3.5 tonnes—disastrous when tours cover multiple countries over weeks and months. Dual registration does not provide a solution for ensembles with a single, purpose-built touring vehicle which cannot create the required EU base. Finally, CITES requirements for musical instruments containing protected materials can prevent last-minute bookings, which are often the things which provide vital career breaks.

The creative sector has been working hard to propose solutions to these challenges. It has put forward a cultural exemption, applied reciprocally, to cover cabotage, CITES and carnets, and suggested a bespoke visa-waiver agreement to allow visa-free working for 90 in 180 days across the whole of the EU and UK—something many countries already offer. Some small steps have been made—I am sure that the Minister will refer to them in winding—but progress has been lamentably slow over the two and half years since the TCA was signed.

Here is where I move from the minor to the major key. When it became clear that touring had indeed been omitted from the TCA, each side claimed that it had offered a deal on touring that the other had rejected. At this point in time, the important part of this sorry story is not that we failed to agree a deal or that we could not agree on who was to blame; it is that we wanted the same thing. If we could now agree to focus not on the past but on the future, that common aim—our shared ambition to enable creative touring—means that we could make rapid progress on resolving this issue, unlike some of the more contentious issues currently on the table. There is a structure in place through which such progress can be made: the Partnership Council has the power to adopt amendments to the TCA and so could achieve what the original negotiators, on both sides, say that they wanted but failed to agree.

The history of art is one of finding inspiration from each other’s cultures, of building ideas and of innovating practice, as artists travel from city to city, state to state. In Europe, this has been the case for hundreds of years and it has enriched our shared and distinctive heritages. Not only that, but when artists and musicians tour, they bring with them direct and indirect economic benefits. They contribute to healthy societies, they promote intercultural understanding and they foster positive relations between nations.

There is much to be gained for both sides in resolving the question of touring. Failure to find resolution will leave us all the poorer and it will be disproportionately hard on emerging and early-career artists, for whom touring is a vital element of professional development. We need to move now to avoid disadvantaging the next generation. I hope that the Minister will do everything that he can to persuade colleagues that working together with the EU to resolve this relatively uncontentious issue would demonstrate our shared desire to make a success of our future relationship with our closest neighbours, with whom we share such a rich and productive history of cultural exchange.