Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

Good afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the outset, as chairman of the gaps in support all-party parliamentary group, may I say how grateful I am to the Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee for his support and help over the past weeks and months.

As others have pointed out, investing in culture will be part of the key to recovery in all other sectors. It is part of the way we live our lives in this country. As the Chairman of the Select Committee pointed out, live events were among the first to shut down because of the pandemic, and they will also sadly be the last to reopen.

Recently I have referred to the particular needs of our highland games. I and my party are calling for the Government to extend the 5% VAT cut to tickets for live events for up to three years. That is because so far live events, such as the highland games, have simply not been able to profit in any way from the VAT cut, because they have not been selling any tickets whatever. I hope that that will be looked upon with some favour and considered by the Government. That would be very helpful.

Sadly, I have learned today of the cancellation of yet another highland games. The Inverness highland games are not going to be held. It is worth pointing out that these events make a huge contribution to the Scottish economy. One of the downsides of my having become an MP is that I can no longer get away with masquerading as a French or German tourist and getting a free glass of Glenmorangie whisky in the tent at the Tain highland gathering, which is there for foreign visitors only. My face has become too well known. It does raise this point, which is that 25% of the people attending highland games all over Scotland are from countries outwith the UK. One can imagine the amount of money they bring into the UK. They make a very important contribution.

Changing tack to PAYE freelancers and the excluded, I welcome—it would be churlish not to—the culture recovery fund. That has been a good thing, but the reality is, as others have pointed out, that most freelancers have not worked at all in the cultural industry since March last year, so they have not benefited from the fund. As has been mentioned, Equity, the actors’ union, has a view on that. It says:

“40% of Equity members have not received a penny from the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme”,

and that is despite those same people being unable to claim through the job retention scheme.

As chair of the gaps in support APPG, I endorse Equity’s proposals that seek to support these people. One thing we could do is allow freelancers to make a claim based on total income—both trading and non-trading profits—to eliminate the 50:50 exclusion. Equally, I endorse the APPG’s proposal to implement an urgent stopgap grant of £7,500, or £2,500 for three months, under the self-employment income support scheme, to pay PAYE freelancers who have been excluded from Government support.

The fact is that, as has already been said, there is a question mark over the future of the Edinburgh festival, and I have long advocated some sort of Government support for insurance cover. It could be done—insurance cover for terrorism is already done—and I do hope that the Government will look favourably on that. At the end of the day, the Edinburgh festival fringe brings in £500 million in direct spending and a further £560 million in indirect spending to the Scottish economy, so what I say—I think we are all singing off the same sheet this afternoon—is that on the happy day that we get through the pandemic, let us celebrate, but let us also make sure that we have a culture industry that can help us celebrate.