Lord Geddes
Main Page: Lord Geddes (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord De Mauley
I cannot disagree with anything the noble Earl has said. It is very important to us to encourage and foster culture in our country. Foreign artists and performers are extremely welcome here, but the system has to be conducted in a robust but fair way.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, where an artist—let us say for reasons of health—has to drop out of a performance at very short notice and the only suitable replacement artist is from abroad, is my noble friend aware of the potential difficulty in obtaining a visa for the artist coming in as a subsidiary?
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, yes, I am aware of that. As I have tried to explain, there are certain routes to facilitate an artist in that situation, but they have to be used with a system of undertaking proper checks of documentation.