Musicians and Creative Professionals: Working in the European Union

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Grand Committee

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the ability of musicians and other creative professionals from the United Kingdom to work and tour in the European Union.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the concerns of creative professionals on touring and working in Europe. I thank the Government for extending this debate to an hour and a half. I am grateful for the briefings from the Incorporated Society of Musicians, UK Music, Carry on Touring, LIVE, the Association of British Orchestras, T&S Immigration Services, the Contemporary Visual Arts Network and the House of Lords Library. I am pleased that we will have contributions to this debate from across the Committee.

In practical terms, as the Incorporated Society of Musicians and others have been at pains to point out, this is, above all, about trade. As such, it is something we should all be concerned with. In pre-pandemic 2019, music alone was worth £5.8 billion, almost five times as much as the fishing industry at £1.4 billion—which is also, one has to say, now sadly suffering the effects of Brexit. Live music is a key aspect of music, making bands’ reputations abroad and stimulating sales. According to the Featured Artists Coalition, in 2019 UK acts played four times as many gigs in the EU as in the US.

It is great to have live music and the arts more generally back and largely up and running on our own shores, with Glastonbury, the Stones, Adele, the Proms this month and much more to look forward to. While I suspect that most of the focus today will be on music, concerns about working in Europe are being felt across the creative industries. I will touch on the visual arts, which is my own background. I ask therefore that the Minister looks carefully at the new Arts Council-funded report, International Connections, produced by a-n and the Contemporary Visual Arts Network, which makes some important recommendations. I ask him to look carefully as well at the forthcoming All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music report, Let the Music Move, addressing similar concerns for the music industry. It would be excellent if the Minister could attend its launch in Parliament, on 19 July.

The trade and co-operation agreement was a no-deal for services, including the arts and creative industries. It has been imperative from the outset that the Government take mitigating action to drastically improve the situation for the arts in the face of this no deal, but the reality is that 18 months have passed and little of substance has been achieved.

Moreover, the Government have tried to paint a picture that is far better than reality. LIVE says it remains

“deeply concerned about the impact of Brexit on the UK’s live music industry.”

We are already now hearing the practical problems musicians are having, such as that of the band White Lies, which in April had to cancel a booking in Paris because its equipment was still waiting to clear customs in the UK. The Government must stop harking back to whatever they say was offered to the EU; that is history. Through whatever mechanisms are available, and I know that other noble Lords will talk about that in more detail, the UK needs to reapproach the EU to effect those changes that are urgently required. As TCA negotiator, the noble Lord, Lord Frost, himself has admitted that the Government have been too purist in their approach. We need a rethink and a reset. It is, after all, the future of our performing arts and more that is at stake.

Cabotage remains one of the most significant problems. The industry is grateful for the dual registration fix, but it is only a partial fix and does not address operation under an own account. Furthermore, it shifts this specialist haulage industry to Europe, which, as UK Music points out, will in the longer term cost this country business and jobs.

Most immediately, there remains a massive problem for those unable to use the dual registration services. The Association of British Orchestras says the situation is disastrous for orchestras, many of which run their own purpose-built vehicles. To give one example, the truck owned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, costing £250,000, purchased partly through an Arts Council grant, will be a total waste of money if we do not negotiate a cabotage exemption with the EU. This is urgent. The ABO proposed that a solution for own-account operators might be presented at a forthcoming UK-EU Specialised Committee on Road Transport meeting. Will the Government act?

It is urgent too that we negotiate a visa waiver agreement, which a cabotage agreement could also be part of. Visa and work permit regulations within Europe are complicated. We have not agreed a single bilateral agreement with the EU, although two countries, Spain and Greece, have relaxed their visa rules for the UK, which I understand merely brings the UK in line with US acts who have toured those countries visa-free for decades.

ISM last year proposed a bespoke visa waiver agreement, which was shown to government officials. Legal advice confirmed that such a proposal was legally workable without being incompatible with the UK’s ability to take back control of its borders; none of this was questioned by the Government. But the Government, for reasons known only to themselves, have not followed up this constructive proposal, which is backed across the board by the music industry. Again, urgent action is required.

The problems presented by carnets and CITES are likewise problems of both cost and red tape. There are two groups who will be most affected here: on the one hand, orchestras, for which costs may spiral; on the other, those starting out, including bands and individual musicians, who will not have the resources of artists such as Elton John and Ed Sheeran to carry these extra significant burdens. Again, we have to negotiate with the EU a cultural exemption to the cost of ATA carnets and CITES as well. On the question of CITES, I ask the Minister what news he has over whether St Pancras will become a CITES designated point of exit. Eurostar is a hugely important route. Again, a sense of urgency is required.

ISM has also drawn my attention to a couple of recent developments around CITES that will emerge at CITES COP 19, which I hope the Minister is also aware of. ISM supports the new proposals from the US music industry to ease and provide exemptions from CITES permits. Will the Government support those proposals? Will the Government oppose the proposals from Brazil for a new designation of Pernambuco, the wood used in making bows, which, while well-intentioned, would significantly and detrimentally interfere in the legal trade in bows? This is important.

In the debate on dual registration in Grand Committee on 13 June, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, rightly raised concerns about merchandise, the importance of which can be too easily underestimated. UK Music notes that the band Squid cancelled dates in Spain because of the costs both of carnets and of the movement of merchandise between the UK and the EU. Another band has stated that such costs, including the requirement to VAT register, meant that it missed out on £2,500-worth of merchandise on its last tour of France. These are significant losses. Will the Minister look at what is yet another make-or-break worry for musicians?

I will mention briefly traffic in the other direction. A concern that Steve Richard of T&S Immigration Services raises is that of the mishandling of incoming bands by UK border staff, including, for example, them being given wrong information about passport stamps and being sent through e-gates, making the tour technically illegal. These are common occurrences. There are now concerns about adequate staffing levels, but the better training of UK border and other airport staff to deal with musicians and crew is required.

The concerns of visual artists exhibiting work in Europe post Brexit has, up to now, been relatively overlooked, yet there exists the same confusion and paucity of information as afflicts others in the creative industries. Shipping and other costs, red tape and the sheer complexities now involved have already this year been responsible for artists cancelling their participation in exhibitions in Europe, as I heard this week at a Zoom event organised by Arts Infopoint. International Connections recommends better representation for the visual arts, including on the TCA domestic advisory group, of which LIVE and UK Music are already members. The report also recommends the appointment of a freelance commissioner, which would allow further representation for arts and creative workers.

I have not by any means covered all the many concerns that the music sector is raising, let alone those of other creative industries. But perhaps the most disturbing is the extent to which the pipeline of talent will be affected by the curtailment not just of opportunities for young artists touring but opportunities for jobs, such as for opera singers, dancers and many others who are now shut out of work in Europe because they do not possess an EU passport.

As the pandemic, we hope, recedes, we have reached a point at which we are taking greater stock of the effects of Brexit. Nevertheless, the good sense of what the industry is now asking for speaks for itself. What is needed now from the Government is a much greater urgency in addressing these concerns and ultimately finding solutions.