Touring Musicians: EU Visas and Permits

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Harman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Time is not on our side. We all recognise this is an immensely skilled and professional industry that we should protect, and it should not have to move. Our musicians and those who work to support them are highly committed, resourceful and skilled. They say there is a problem that they cannot solve and they need Government action. The Government must reach agreements with all EU countries for consistent regimes so that our musicians can once again tour freely in the EU. As the hon. Gentleman said, they should do it quickly. Plans are being made in the EU that leave out our sector.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Lady for securing this debate. I declare my interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on opera. She has referred to touring bands and orchestras, but there is also a real issue for singers and freelancers. For an individual singer, especially a young singer, trying to negotiate the forms is nigh on impossible. A production of “Peter Grimes”, the great Benjamin Britten opera, which requires an English-speaking cast at the Teatro Real in Madrid, was in jeopardy for months before eventually a workaround was achieved. Even though the situation in Spain has improved, in many places it is very difficult for British singers, and they are not getting the bookings. Bookings for opera companies are made years in advance, which is why we need certainty now.

[Ms Harman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. Plans are being made, and if the Government do not move quickly some organisations will become unviable. Some musicians at the top of their career will feel their best option is to relocate to Europe, and we do not want them to have to do that. Many of the next generation of musicians will never have the opportunity to get into the profession, and to develop their careers, without the financial and artistically important benefits of working in Europe. Whether it is established artists or those just starting out, big organisations or freelancers, our music sector needs the cultural creativity that they get from working in Europe. We do not want to become a musical Galápagos with our musicians locked out of the cultural partnership that is so important for creative development.

I hope the Minister will recognise the weight of opinion, which includes Sir Elton John, Sir Simon Rattle, Howard Goodall, Sting, Judith Weir, Nicola Benedetti, Ed Sheeran, the Sex Pistols, Roger Daltrey, Bob Geldof, Brian May and many more. I pay tribute to the work done by the organisations demanding Government action: the Musicians’ Union, UK Music, the Association of British Orchestras, BECTU, the Incorporated Society of Musicians and Carry on Touring, to name just a few. They all call for a concerted response from the Government to support the sector while matters are being sorted out.

The Prime Minister has said that there is a problem and he promised to fix it. I have talked to the new Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. She knows about this and I know she wants to sort it. We are genuinely not looking for a political row. We only want a solution, but we need absolute clarity and honesty from the Government. There is no point in telling the sector that the problem is solved if it clearly is not. There is no point in the Government just issuing more guidance. Those involved in the music sector do not need to be told what the problem is. They know only too well and they need the Government to sort it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Knight]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) and the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), for securing the debate. I concur entirely with her speech, which was conciliatory and thoughtful. I hope that the Minister takes that tone away from the debate: it is not a party political matter, but a matter of looking after our constituents, our wider cultural impact and, frankly, global Britain. Without these industries, we are not global Britain anymore.

I will make some brief observations. We have heard about the enormous flurry of paperwork and the unworkable and patchwork system that is in place. The Select Committee has been aware of the issue for a long time. We invited Lord Frost to appear before us at the start of the year, but he refused. It was only after pinning the Prime Minister down in the Liaison Committee on 24 March that he said Lord Frost will appear and we will get this sorted. Lord Frost eventually appeared in June or July after avoiding the Committee for a long time, but in that whole time, there have been only four official bilateral meetings, one of which was on the morning of his appearance by some strange coincidence—that is one every two months.

I know that conversations have taken place, however, and that the Minister’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), was, after initially trying to get her head around the issue, committed to it. She told us some good stories about how she would track people down at conference and try to have conversations, but there was always a feeling that there was a road block in the shape of Lord Frost.

It seemed that the issue was being drawn into the general feeling of antagonism between us and the EU, which was unnecessary. This is not a confected row to bring about a Jim Hacker sausage moment in politics in terms of the Northern Ireland protocol. That should have nothing to do with this issue, which is about people’s livelihoods and our place in the world.

It is utterly farcical that we are 20 miles away from Europe and yet, in the case of at least six nations, we have the same rights of travel and access for brilliant creatives—not just musicians but whole swathes of people across industries—as people coming from the Cook Islands on the other side of the world. That is a ridiculous situation.

I say to the Minister that she is pushing at an open door. Provided that we keep the issue out of the mess that is going on with Northern Ireland, which I believe we can, there is an enormous willingness across the EU to talk to us bilaterally, because they also want our talent there—they miss it. We have such a fantastic reservoir of talent. They want people to be there and to enjoy that cultural exchange. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) spoke about opera. I was talking to a lady who is one of the world’s leading lights at the Vienna opera house. She is struggling to get work there. This is a person of such huge, global talent that she is called upon everywhere.

[Sir Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend makes such an important point. We forget just how significant the status of British artists is in the opera field—not only the leading stars, such as he refers to, but the young singers who cut their teeth in the repertoire houses in Germany and the festivals in Europe. They are losing out because of an inflexibility and a lack of joined-up Government between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Cabinet Office, and that has to change.

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is singing from the same song sheet as I am. There is perhaps a misperception—we often talk about this on the Select Committee—of the importance of DCMS to our economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome referenced it, but to put it into real figures the DCMS sector is worth 23% of the economy. The Government are around 40% to 45% of the economy—it depends on where one is in the United Kingdom. DCMS is 0.5% of Government spending. When it has a few million quid, it has to go the Treasury—it is in the same building—and say, “Please can we do this?”

There is an idea within Government, and has been, I would say, for many years, that these industries are mendicants, always asking for hand-outs. That may be true of the Royal Opera House, but our creative sectors are the model of leanness and competitiveness. They have learned to survive without hand-outs over a long period. My view—this may be where I depart from Opposition Members—is that that has been of enormous benefit to their long-term health and robustness, but they cannot deal with the red tape and the lack of access and ability to work. I am a free-marketarian. This is not a free market because of circumstance and perhaps a lack of focus and will in certain parts of Government, though not within DCMS.

We have allowed a situation to occur where we are helping to damage industries in which we have a competitive advantage. There is an economic law of competitive cost advantage. The reason why we are really good is because we have the English language and a great history of creativity. We should invest in areas where we have a competitive cost advantage. We no longer have one in many industries, but we do in this one. Without the music industry and film production, the UK economy, pre pandemic, would have been in recession for four of the previous six years. That is why it is vital that we get this moving, because we will discover the damage that has been done only when it is too late.

There also may be a bit of sniffiness about the industry. We all remember during the pandemic the quickly withdrawn advert showing a ballerina whose next job was as an IT consultant. I am not dissing IT consultants, but being a ballerina is fantastic, top of the tree, and something that we should be proud of in this country. There are Members in the Chamber who really want to work with the Minister and see this happen, because we care about our constituents and our country, and we know that these are areas in which we can have genuine advantage and push ourselves forward. We have effectively given them a no-deal Brexit. We now need to mend that by dealing with the cabotage through the EU and having bilaterals to get this sorted.