European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 146 is an amendment to the one just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, which I support. I speak on behalf of and will use the words of my noble friend Lord Puttnam, who cannot be here today as he is suffering from flu. I am sure your Lordships will want to send him good wishes for a speedy recovery.

I know that my noble friend is very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and my noble friend Lord Judd for signing his amendment, and I look forward to their speeches.

Our creative industries have emerged as one of UK plc’s great success stories of recent decades. According to the latest figures, the UK’s creative industries represented nearly 4% of the UK’s gross value added in 1997. In the past 10 years this has increased by a massive 44.8% to the point where they now contribute £91.8 billion to the UK economy. But, just as importantly, the creative industries have become one of the instruments of soft power through which the UK has helped to shape ideas and thinking across Europe and the world.

Many of the policies developed by the EU, and warmly supported by the UK, have helped to grow our creative industries. I will leave it to others to talk about intellectual property, which is the basis of the creative sector, but I will give one example from the EU framework. It allows UK designers to register their designs and trademarks once in a single application that covers the entire EU and, like the recently established Unified Patent Court, provides an effective and efficient way of defending their IP.

Our creative industries cover a fairly wide range of subsectors, so let us take the example of cross-border broadcasters based in this country. The UK is Europe’s leading international hub for global media groups. It is home to more television channels than any other EU country. According to the Commercial Broadcasters Association, around 1,400 channels are based here, representing more than a third of all EU broadcasting. Over half the channels licensed in the UK broadcast direct to overseas countries. These channels employ thousands of people in this country and one in 10 jobs in the television sector is related, wholly or in part, to the presence of channels that broadcast outwith the UK.

They currently invest more than £1 billion a year in wages, overheads and technology, helping to ensure that the UK broadcasting sector has the critical mass to compete on the global stage. But the reason this works as well as it does—and it does work well—is that when the UK regulator Ofcom grants a company based in the UK a broadcasting licence, that licence, under EU law, has to be recognised by every other EU member state without further checks or review.

So, what happens when we leave? Unless we can reach a reciprocal agreement with the EU, this privileged position will be lost forever, along with the investment and jobs that go with it. It is not just the jobs at the broadcasters themselves—we should think of the value chain and the production hubs that have sprung up around them, helping to make the UK the leading centre for the audio-visual industry in Europe and, by a country mile, the most significant outside the US.

The scenario I describe and the economic minefield it represents are not a far-off prospect. There is a clear and present danger. Last week, as reported in the press today, a group of senior officials from Ireland’s audio-visual regulator was in London, pitching to the major broadcasters the advantages of moving to Dublin. Two weeks from now the President of Estonia, together with her Minister of Culture, will be in London on a similar mission. Others, from Holland, Luxembourg and elsewhere are planning to follow. Without some form of reciprocal agreement with the remaining EU member states, our creative and cultural sectors will undoubtedly suffer irreversible economic and cultural damage.

There is more. Research undertaken by Oxera for the British Film Institute indicates that the proposed diminution of freedom of movement will erode our available pool of talent. This could lead to a decrease of 5% to 6% in the volume of screen sector content made in the UK, along with the loss of some 5,000 jobs. The same research shows that the no deal scenario, under which we fall back on WTO rules, would lead to 14,000 job losses.

However, the freedom of movement challenge is even greater than that. Let us reflect for a moment on the difficulties that orchestras, rock bands, actors and every kind of creative person, whether from the UK or the EU, may have in crossing borders after we become a third country. Then add in the issue of moving equipment between two very different jurisdictions. Lorries queueing at Dover, Harwich and Holyhead will be stuffed not just with food and electrical goods but with musical instruments, sophisticated camera equipment and the physical goods that even in this digital age enable people across the UK and Europe to enjoy the very best of our common European culture.

We do not want to return to the era of the carnet, when an enormous amount of paperwork was required simply to move a film camera from London to Paris or Rome. Unless we can wrap a reciprocal agreement around our creative industries, we risk returning to those dark days of zero growth, little confidence and minimal opportunity.

The people who will suffer as a consequence are not just those who work in the creative industries; audiences across the UK will no longer be able to enjoy to anything like the same extent performances by orchestras, theatre companies, dancers, musicians and poets from across Europe. They will not be able freely to access the fruits of a common European culture—a culture that every person in this country under the age of 40 has taken entirely for granted.

The case for remaining in the EU is economic, but it is also cultural and historical. More than 50 years of peace, prosperity and culture exist and must not be forgotten. This is why we need to secure an agreement with the EU that underpins the future of our cultural industries, to the benefit of both our citizens and our economy.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to announce that this is the last speech I shall make in Committee on the Bill.