Oral Answers to Questions

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend has tremendous passion and expertise in this area and I know that, like me, she recently met Mark Davyd from the Music Venue Trust, a grassroots music venue organisation. I discussed with him a range of issues facing the sector, including energy costs and ticketing, and various proposals that involve both Government and the private sector. We are exploring how we can help those critical grassroots music venues to survive because, as my hon. Friend recognises, they are vital to the development of talent in our wider music industry.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for touring musicians right across the UK and within the EU. The international language of song and music is being constrained by a barrage of bureaucracy and opportunities lost across continents for generations. Bands from the EU now say they will boycott the UK because of what they describe as degrading treatment at our borders, and most UK bands have given up trying to enter the EU at all. The all-party parliamentary group on music recommended appointing a touring tsar to fix the problems. Whatever has happened to that, and what is wrong with that suggestion?

[Julia Lopez]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight how valuable and life-enhancing UK music is, including the folk rock that he produces, and I know Europe is eager to hear it. He paints a fairly bleak picture of touring, but we have been doing a whole range of work to unblock some of the issues that have been raised with us by touring groups. There is now a range of visa, transport and other arrangements, but it is in our interest to make sure that those music bands can reach their key audiences, and we continue to look at what other frictions there are so that we can try to unblock them.