Arts: Impact of Brexit

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I also want to talk mainly about the music sector, which is the one I know best. I thank the Association of British Orchestras and the Incorporated Society of Musicians for their briefings. I declare an interest as a current trustee and the original chair of trustees of the VCM Foundation at the Gresham Centre. We do both education and performance: two ensembles perform in Britain and, in the coming months, will perform in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, China, Japan and the United States.

Yesterday, I was talking to our chief executive and our head of education, who are currently in Paris leading a seminar for French teachers on musical education in schools. We are part of Britain’s soft power, which we risk losing. As part of our musical education, we bring choirs from different countries together. The last-but-one concert I went to at the Gresham Centre in Gresham Street had an American choir and the choir of the Shoreditch Academy, most of whose members have never been out of London, singing together. That is, again, part the way in which the arts can expand people’s sense of where they are. The Voces 8 Method—our method of teaching people in schools who have never come across music before—has now been published in English, French, German, Japanese and Mandarin. That is the sort of spread which, in all sorts of ways, we have with the arts in this country, and which is at stake.

The uncertainty is the biggest problem we face, and I ask the Minister a specific question: the White Paper, The Future Relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, published in July, says at paragraph 76:

“Given the depth of the relationship and close ties between the peoples of the UK and the EU, the UK will make a sovereign choice in a defined number of areas to seek reciprocal mobility arrangements with the EU”.


That was written nine months before we are due to leave, and 15 months after the referendum, and we are now less than six months from leaving. The idea that we are still “seeking” reciprocal mobility arrangements, when orchestras and other organisations have to plan three or four years ahead, is part of the reason for the frustration he is hearing all around the Chamber. Can he tell us what progress is being made on that, and when the Government may be able to tell the cultural sector what reciprocal arrangements they hope to achieve? Paragraph 79 of the White Paper says that,

“mobility is a key element of economic, cultural and scientific cooperation”.

Yes, it is—we need to make sure that people can plan ahead.

It is the incoherence of the Government that is most frustrating in all of this, not only in cultural but scientific co-operation, on which I am also doing some research at present. DCMS is, I am sure, thoroughly committed to this, but the Home Office, meanwhile, is blocking things. It is promoting a “hostile environment” for foreign visitors. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked what has happened to the special office within the Home Office that used to deal with visas. I am sure it has been outsourced to a private provider by now, possibly one outside this country.

A number of noble Lords have already noted how much the costs of visas are already a deterrent. The Home Secretary suggesting that imposing non-EU rules and practice on European visitors and workers is where we go from here really does suggest that the largest single number of exchanges we have—with our geographical neighbours—will suffer from the same sorts of frustrations that Australians, Canadians, Americans and others have in pursuing cultural exchanges. We have heard already about repeated short-term visits in both directions, for opera singers and orchestral musicians, and how these often take place at short notice. We have also heard about health insurance, VAT, copyright and the like. It is the accumulation of obstacles that deters people from making the attempt to exchange. The atmosphere in which culture flourishes or fades is created by such obstacles, and that is what the Government are now doing.

The rhetoric of “global Britain”, with an underlying tone of closed borders and an inward-looking England, is part of what is happening. The most disgraceful thing the Prime Minister has said on all this, is to talk about the “people of nowhere” compared to the “people of somewhere”. If you are in the cultural field, you are unavoidably one of the “people of nowhere”—you travel, exchange and learn. UKIP and the Brexiteers love singing “Land of Hope and Glory” and “Jerusalem”. I did a quick Google to remind me of where Elgar looked for his musical experience, which of course was Germany. He wanted to study at the Leipzig conservatoire, but managed only a summer there and in Paris. Parry, much the same, thought that German music was the best. The “Enigma Variations” premiere was conducted by Hans Richter and Elgar’s “Violin Concerto” was commissioned by Fritz Kreisler. These exchanges are not new. The quality of British culture and music depends on a network. That sort of international network requires rules and openness. If global Britain and open Britain mean anything, this is one of the things that the Government must achieve and they must carry their cultural sector with them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I have to take note of the noble Lord’s points. He has been assiduous in making these points over not just weeks but many months. However, I can only take note, and I come back to where we stand. It is much more for my colleagues in DExEU to make these points, but that is how we sit. I am afraid that that is what I have to say to the noble Lord.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Minister should know that it is a question of urgency. The briefings we have all had pointed out that arts organisations have to plan up to two or three years ahead. The Minister gave the answer that the Government are thinking about when they might be able to tell us something about what they hope to negotiate with the European Union at some point before the end of the implementation period. That is a very long period of uncertainty, which will damage our entire cultural sector. Can he not give us some sense of timing and urgency?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord is pushing me. I realise that he raised this point in his speech, but I am not able to give a definitive timetable and I hope that he will respect that. In fact, if there was such a timetable, it would have been made by Ministers other than myself. I reassure him again that discussions are continuing intensely in the channels that he will know about. We await announcements.