Brexit: UK-EU Movement of People (EUC Report)

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the Home Affairs Sub-Committee on their informative report.

I want to talk about an area that is touched on in the report but that has not had the discussion in Parliament or in the media that it deserves. I refer to how the loss of free movement in the future would be likely to affect UK citizens based in this country, especially young people, as how we treat EU nationals who are already in this country will mirror how we expect UK nationals going into Europe in the future to be treated.

The report discusses short-term travel to the UK with reference to agriculture, for instance, but what is missing is any picture of how UK citizens move round Europe, particularly for periods of less than a year, and, more generally, attitudes towards free movement as an aspect of EU citizenship—issues which I believe are central to the Brexit debate.

In both those respects it is worth quoting the observation on page 18 of the report made by Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London. He is concerned about the problem of the definition of an immigrant as someone who arrived in the UK intending to stay for more than one year. He said:

“That was probably quite meaningful … in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when people who planned to come and live here came from the Caribbean or India with a work visa … If you are coming from Poland, Latvia or France, there is no legal, moral or practical obligation on you. When you come here and flash your passport with no visa in it, you may very well not know whether you intend to stay for a month, six months, or the rest of your life. Even if you did have some vague intention, it could well change and you are perfectly entitled to do that”.


There are two things here. One is the ad hoc, spontaneous manner in which free movement can now occur—part of it being “free”—and the other is that of entitlement. A problem is the scarcity of data on how British people utilise free movement, apart from the 1.2 million UK nationals who we know are settled in Europe.

One industry that might best reflect how young people in particular utilise free movement is the arts and creative industries. For instance, 48% of those in the creative media industries are under the age of 35, which is 13% more than the average for the national workforce. Results of a study released last week at the launch of the campaign #FreeMoveCreate—a joint venture between the Incorporated Society of Musicians and the Artists Information Company, representing over 30,000 musicians and artists—gives a detailed view of how important free movement is to our creative industries. These are now worth £87 billion to the UK economy, more than either the car manufacturing or aerospace industries.

The creative industries have a strong service industries aspect to them; it is rarely as simple as just the movement of goods. What emerges is a sophisticated picture of movement, with frequent travel and stays varying from long to short. In the past 12 months, 40% of visual artists travelled regularly to the EU for work or professional development, and 53% who had travelled to the EU had an average stay of between four and seven days. Seventy per cent of musicians travel overseas for work. The average stay is eight days, but can range up to 60, and musicians are 25% more likely to travel to the EU than the rest of the world. Some musicians travel to the EU more than 40 times a year. Deborah Annetts, chief executive of ISM, says that,

“60% of musicians placed maintaining freedom of movement as their number one priority … Our research shows that visas are not the solution and can cause even more problems”.

That conclusion is in line with the concerns expressed to the sub-committee on EU nationals seeking short-term work in the UK.

Work permits and required job offers are entirely unrealistic. The informality and spontaneity of decision-making in the creative industries cannot be overemphasised. Many artists visit other countries in Europe on a look-see basis, with opportunities for work decided at a moment’s notice. A good example of this is the fashion industry, where it might be decided in London in the morning that a fashion shoot will happen in the afternoon in Paris, Rome or wherever, with participants arriving from different countries.

The mantra that we hear from the Government when problems are raised about EU nationals coming to the UK—and of course any final deal would need to be reciprocal—is that “we will attract the brightest and the best”, as was referred to earlier by my noble friend Lady Prashar. This outlook seems to bear no relationship whatever to the nature of the reality of an industry where short-term and long-term opportunities often segue one into the other. This is true for movement in both directions. The individual citizenship right of free movement is pivotal to the operation of the creative industries, let alone their success.

The other concern that Portes’s observation raises is the issue of entitlement. For young people in particular there is the question of the extent to which free movement in this way is understood, not just for the purposes of travel to work and study in another country but as a democratic right in itself, as enshrined in the 2004 citizens directive. There is a strong argument—supported by Floris de Witte, assistant professor at the London School of Economics—that free movement is the core value of EU citizenship. I submit that for most Europeans it is inconceivable that the ability to move at will between countries in Europe and in an expanding EEA, notwithstanding the referendum, could be a right that is lost. It is part of the democratic foundation upon which modern Europe is being built. In the UK, we know from YouGov that 71% of 18 to 24 year-olds voted remain in the referendum. A poll last month for the Observer held that 85% of 18 to 24 year-olds wished to retain EU citizenship. It is free movement that the young in the UK do not want to lose.

The Government need to recognise urgently that a distinction must be made between the individual’s right to free movement, and an overarching immigration policy that might be introduced for example to protect industry in the UK in regions where it is felt necessary to do so, while we retain access to the single market. The right of UK citizens to move freely within Europe should not become collateral damage.