To move that this House takes note of the report from the European Union Committee Brexit: Movement of People in the Cultural Sector (19th Report, HL Paper 182.)
My Lords, perhaps I will wait a moment while free movement outside the cultural sector takes place.
It is a pleasure to introduce the European Union Committee’s report on movement of people in the cultural sector. Let me say at the start that I am grateful to the members of the sub-committee and to our excellent secretariat. The report was published on 26 July last year, and the Government’s response was received on 13 November—the day before the draft withdrawal agreement and political declaration were published. The Government have also since published their immigration White Paper, in December last year, setting out the UK’s future immigration system after free movement comes to an end. The House of Lords moves with due deliberation, and I shall not complain about the delay in scheduling this debate, which perhaps reflects the timeless nature of our culture.
Throughout the inquiry, and following publication of the report, the committee has engaged closely with the cultural sector. The committee heard from musicians, dancers and other artists, not only on the impact that ending free movement could have on the arts sector in the UK but on the negative impact that the uncertainty of the Brexit negotiations is already having. I will return to that. I was pleased to be able to discuss these concerns with Margot James, the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, in what was an encouraging meeting. However, I have the impression that the Home Office may be rather fiercer.
The committee made two clear recommendations to the Government to minimise disruption to the cultural sector after the UK leaves the EU. The first recommendation was that the Government should seek an EU-wide, multi-entry, short-term touring visa for UK citizens and offer a reciprocal commitment for EU citizens. This issue was raised a few minutes ago in a question from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. Such a visa would enable self-employed artists and musicians to travel easily between the UK and the EU for temporary work. It would ensure that touring remains affordable and easy to organise for all self-employed artists. Ensuring that artists can continue to move freely between the UK and the EU will ensure that our cultural sector remains vibrant and rich in talent. If I may say so, this is equally true for the opulence of Covent Garden and the mud of Glastonbury. The committee was constantly struck by the extent to which the cultural sector depends on free movement of people within the European Union. The evidence from the Creative Industries Federation on that point was compelling.
Our second recommendation was to ensure that EU citizens travelling on short-term contracts to the UK after the transition period will not have to pay into our social security system, and that the Government should seek reciprocal arrangements with the EU. Under current EU provisions, posted workers and others who actively work in two or more member states pay social security contributions only in the member state in which they are regularly employed. The concern we have heard from the sector is that, without this policy, it would often be too expensive for UK artists and musicians to tour in the EU and vice versa.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and I congratulate him on the work that he and his sub-committee have done on the cultural sector.
Nearly two years ago now, my own sub-committee of your Lordships’ European Union Select Committee produced a report on Brexit and the service trades. My intervention today is not through any particular insight into the position of the various cultural sectors—I am a great admirer of many of the sectors that the noble Lord, Lord Jay, has referred to, particularly cinema and the theatre—but in our earlier inquiry many musicians, stage providers and the whole broadcasting sector all emphasised the danger of uncertainty, as the noble Lord said, and the effect that restrictions on the movement of people will have on their ability to deliver British cultural products, employ talent from around the world and send our talent around the world if this issue is not addressed fully.
I am not a representative of any cultural sector. I found myself boasting over the weekend, after a couple of glasses, that I had been on stage with some of our leading actors. That was 50 years ago, and their careers seem to have taken off better than mine did, so, like many failed actors, I ended up in politics.
This is part of a wider situation. The cultural sector depends on people’s ability to move around, as do many others. Professional services, tourism and a whole range of industries depend on people moving from this country into Europe and on Europeans coming to work here in the long, medium or short term. The way in which our immigration system and Europe’s immigration system operate with the rest of the world is not conducive to that method of operating across borders for sectors of this kind. People in them need to move frequently without hassle—as our passports used to say, “without let or hindrance”—but that only ever operated within the EU. We are talking about a significant sector. The noble Lord said that the cultural sector is worth £30 billion, but together the sectors we are talking about form approximately 60% of our economy, and most of them depend on that kind of movement.
My Lords, an outsider looking in might regard this subject matter as a niche area of concern. I suggest, however, that in many ways it encapsulates the impact that a post-Brexit UK will have on individuals and the experiences of communities.
I was fortunate to be a member of the EU Home Affairs Committee, under the good chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jay. It listened to and interrogated the evidence, and drew the conclusions set out in the report’s recommendations. What became clear during the inquiry was the significant and detrimental impact of a failure to address the specific issues that will affect this sector in any post-Brexit UK.
The committee heard evidence from across the cultural sector. We learned that dance organisations were among the most likely to employ EU 27 citizens. Of the 40,000 working in dance, on average 20% were EU nationals. The diversity study by UK Music found that 10% of those employed in the UK music industry were EU 27 nationals. Other cultural sectors, such as film and television and the museum and heritage sector, reported similar proportions of EU 27 nationals.
The significance of the involvement of EU 27 citizens in the UK cultural sector cannot be dismissed as simply a numbers issue, whereby encouraging and training more UK residents in these areas will solve the problem. Nor, in my opinion, can this issue be seen solely in monetary terms. The cultural sector does indeed make a very large contribution to the UK economy —as has already been quoted, the GVA of the sector was £29 billion in 2017—but this is just one facet of its impact.
During the inquiry, the effect of an end to free movement on communities’ access to cultural experiences and hence the cultural life of our country became clear. The Musicians’ Union and the Association of British Orchestras highlighted their members’ community outreach work in care homes, hospitals and prisons, as well as their specific programmes to reach young people. The inquiry heard passionate, well-argued and evidenced pleas from all sectors about the negative impact that a potential post-Brexit end to free movement would have. I shall give a couple of Yorkshire examples.
My Lords, arts and culture have overtaken agriculture in their contribution to the economy: £10.8 billion. Sir Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre for 12 years, said:
“You will find nobody in the arts world who doesn’t think there is an enormous black cloud on the horizon in the shape of Brexit. We are so dependent on ideas, talent, people moving freely. Freedom of movement was nothing but good for us”.
Then there was the open letter sent to the Prime Minister last year, organised by Bob Geldof and supported by Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora, Jarvis Cocker and Simon Rattle. The letter asked for an urgent rethink on Brexit, saying:
“We are about to make a very serious mistake regarding our giant industry and the vast pool of yet undiscovered genius that lives on this little island”.
The letter predicted that the “vast voice” and reach of British music would be silenced in a “self-built cultural jail”. People will lose their jobs if there is no deal, or even the Prime Minister’s deal. Movement of people is crucial and everything will change if it goes.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jay, on his very good opening speech, and his committee on its report, Brexit: Movement of People in the Cultural Sector. The report right up front states:
“The cultural sector makes a profoundly important contribution to the UK’s society and economy, and to its international image and influence. Cultural sector workers are highly mobile, and have thrived on collaboration with people from all over the world”.
So this is a story of Britain’s soft power and its partnerships around the world. The report also talks about the Government wanting to,
“‘take back control’ of the UK’s borders by ending the free movement of persons”.
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jay, on securing a debate on an issue vital to the future of our creative industries. The report sets out comprehensively and compellingly the benefits of freedom of movement for the cultural sector, something it rightly describes as crucial, and the various ways that we can mitigate its disappearance if Brexit happens. It highlights many of the key issues the sector faces: for instance, the need to attract talent, the high rates of self-employment and freelance work alongside less than median salaries, and the often short-term—indeed, almost instantaneous—nature of the work. The report makes it clear that vital to finding a way through the huge issues that Brexit poses for the sector is for the Government to be flexible. That is spot on; flexibility is the key and the EU Select Committee is to be commended on a really important piece of work.
I declare an interest as the chairman of the Royal College of Music, and it is music that I wish to talk about today. Music matters, of course, for us as individuals, for the education of children, for the sort of society that we are and for our national identity. We do not need to rehearse those arguments today but in a post-Brexit world music also matters in hard economic terms, which we must have at the forefront of our minds when considering these policy issues. I will briefly highlight two of those which have already been touched on a little.
First, music is a remarkable engine of economic growth because it is absolutely fundamental to the success of the creative economy, which contributes so much to our gross national product, to jobs and to exports. The UK creative economy is worth £101 billion each year and makes up a growing 5% of our economy. More importantly, that growth is twice the rate of the economy as a whole, while the number of new jobs in the sector is growing at four times the rate of the rest of the UK workforce. One in 11 of all jobs depends on the sector and it is the UK music industry—worth £4.5 billion on its own, as we have heard—that powers this. If we undermine the music industry as a result of Brexit and an end to free movement, we imperil the whole of the UK’s creative economy.
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Black, I come at this topic from a music background. As he kindly mentioned, I was chair of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance; I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Classical Music here in Parliament; and I serve under the noble Lord, Lord Burns, on the Mid Wales Music Trust, which supports music there.
I have done some in-depth research to find out who said that this would be the easiest negotiation of all time. Some say Liam Fox and others say David Davis, so shall we call him David Fox? Briefing oneself for this debate, one finds not simplicity or ease but a complexity that defies the imagination. I shall cite one example—I may cite it wrongly, because it is a citation of CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Why does that apply to music? It applies to articles that have rare flora and fauna in them, which include musical instruments. Let us say that we go down the new no-deal route. Certain ports are designated to allow instruments to pass through them under CITES. They do not, however, include Dover; they do not include Holyhead; they not include Eurotunnel. Can you imagine an orchestra with hundreds of instruments looking for some far port which has the CITES ability to allow its instruments to be taken to Europe for it to fulfil its cultural engagements? It is not possible or practicable, yet that is the kind of complication that comes out of this dog’s dinner that we have in front of us.
I shall make a few points to supplement what the noble Lord, Lord Black, said on conservatoires. Twenty per cent of Trinity Laban students come from Europe. It is not easy to get them, because they tend to pay higher fees when they come here, but we have them because of our high standards. Will they still come when they face this bureaucratic mess that we are creating? It is not only their number and the money that comes with them; it is also their importance to the cultural experience. Music is a universal language, but it is spoken in a great variety of accents. If you took away the European students and, still more, the European teachers that we have, we would diminish the product catastrophically. We would also leave some big holes in provision; for example, there is a shortage of really good strings players here; contemporary dance is a bit short—you would lose all that.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and his very thought-provoking remarks. I was particularly taken by his thoughts on CITES. That convention was not going to form part of my submissions but I very much associate myself with his analysis. I also warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and his committee on an extremely incisive, focused and compelling report. It is very difficult to write a short essay and this was a short essay with plenty of punch. I declare my interests as set out in the register, and particularly that I am on the board of a performing arts trust and chairman of a visual arts trust, both in Perth and Kinross, that employ several hundred people between them, and that I am on two museum boards. I should also declare, for reasons that will become obvious, my farming interests as set out in the register.
The gross value added to the UK economy by the cultural sector in 2015 was £27 billion—I am sorry for choosing an old number, but the reason will become obvious. For the agricultural sector it was £8.5 billion, so the cultural sector is three times bigger. Both sectors, of course, depend on EU workers for key elements. In the farming sector, particularly for vegetables and soft fruit, these are actually rather skilled jobs which rely on people coming in to do them. Paragraph 21 of the report reflects on that and on what it terms “massive variations” within the sub-sectors as to what is involved. There is a very good example in paragraph 21 of the visual effects sub-sector, where one-third of all the staff come from the EU. Later on it says that for the dance sector it is 20% and for my own beloved museum sector it is 15%. If I think of who those 15% are in Perth and Kinross, they are often in utterly critical and very highly skilled jobs, but I can assure noble Lords that none is paid £30,000 a year.
I worry about the interconnectivity of the whole cultural sector and the collateral damage when you damage one sector. That becomes very obvious when one thinks of the visual effects sector, as I have mentioned, which services other bits of the cultural industry, notably the film industry. The museum industry is also interested in it. If it is taken elsewhere, that will necessarily produce a pressure for other bits of the cultural sector to move elsewhere as well. That cannot be a good idea.
My Lords, this report, the Government’s response to it and the eloquent introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, all focus on a significant aspect of the debate about Brexit which has not had sufficient attention paid to it.
Before continuing, I declare my interests in the register, pointing in particular to the fact that I am the chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership. One of the themes I have introduced into our activities is that we must focus on and promote culture. We should see it in a loose, modern sense as much as traditional, 19th-century “Kultur”—spelled with a capital “K”. In Cumbria, which is my home county, the most exciting cultural thing I have experienced was a performance—I use that word deliberately—on Derwentwater, where cars and bicycles went across the surface of the lake, and it was French.
It seems to me that the impact of Brexit on culture in this country falls into four distinct bits: first, the commercial impact on those who do it; secondly, its contribution to the UK economy and the Exchequer; thirdly, the cultural offering which is available for people in this country; and, fourthly, as part of the United Kingdom’s soft power.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Black, who explained to us how musicians so frequently spend a great deal of their life travelling abroad. Some years ago, I spent a couple of terms as a Member of the European Parliament. That was in the age of travel agents, and I recall talking to my travel agent and saying, “Of all your customers, am I the one who travels abroad the most?” She responded, “No, I’ve a customer who is a musician”. I thought that made the point vividly. Now, people can move backwards and forwards as easily as any of us can go from Scotland to England to carry on their business. The Government want all this to be changed.
An interesting aspect of all this came to me recently, because I am involved in a small ceramics festival. One of its themes is to try to bring in a number of continental potters. In practice, they load their cars up, normally somewhere in the northern part of the continent, come over to this country, go to a couple of fairs and sell a few pots, and that pays for their trip and covers the cost of their holiday. The paperwork that Brexit will entail probably means that they will no longer come, and in turn—who knows—that may even prejudice the festival itself.
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The Government’s response to our report rightly echoed our praise of Britain’s cultural excellence and diversity, and—worth emphasising here—its importance to the economy, contributing up to £29.5 billion in 2017, the last year for which figures are available. But it was disappointing that the Government’s response to the report lacked, or seemed to lack, genuine consideration of our recommendations. The Government did not address our concerns that applying the current visa system to EU nationals would make it harder to bring talent to the UK; nor did they consider how they could encourage the EU to allow artists to tour easily and take part in temporary arrangements. Further, there was no consideration of our recommendation to waive social security payments for EU citizens travelling to the UK on short-term contracts.
When the immigration White Paper was published, the committee examined it carefully for proposals that reflected the recommendations made in our report. Alas, we found none. I invite the Minister to confirm when replying to this debate whether a touring visa has been ruled out and whether the Government are considering waiving social security payments for temporary EU workers whose regular work is in the European Union.
Since the publication of our report the uncertainty over when and how the UK will leave the EU has increased greatly. We have heard that this uncertainty is already having a negative impact on the cultural sector. The Incorporated Society of Musicians has told us that some EU employers have been reluctant to hire talent in the face of a possible no-deal scenario. Indeed, a recent survey conducted by the Incorporated Society of Musicians found that one in 10 respondents reported that offers of work have been withdrawn or cancelled as a result of Brexit uncertainty. Its recent report stated:
“Brexit casts doubt about the need for visas and their cost which directly affects the viability of concerts”.
I do not expect the Minister to tell us what will happen next—one can always hope, but I do not expect—but I hope he will acknowledge the damage that uncertainty is already causing to our cultural sector.
We welcome the Government’s announcement that in the event of no deal EU citizens will be able to come to the UK for periods of up to three months to work and to apply for European temporary leave to remain to stay for up to 36 months. We are, however, concerned that UK citizens have not been offered reciprocal treatment to enter EU member states. The committee has asked the Minister for Immigration, Caroline Nokes, for an update on the Government’s engagement with EU member states on how they intend to treat UK nationals seeking to work in those countries if there is no deal. The Immigration Minister has, alas, failed to respond to that request. I hope the Minister will be able to give us an update today.
We did not focus much in our report on poetry, which gives me a chance now to say how much I welcome the appointment of Simon Armitage as Poet Laureate. His poems carved in stone along the Pennine Way are witness to the enduring character of British—and, of course, Yorkshire—culture.
However, British culture is also European and depends for its vibrancy on the free movement of people across our borders. I hope the Minister will assure us that the Government will do all in their power to make sure that Britain’s cultural sector, and the British economy with it, is not adversely by Brexit. I beg to move.
What is our reaction and the EU’s reaction to these issues in the negotiations that have already been dragging on for three years and look like dragging on for another few years? It is not good. The services sector has either been assumed to take care of itself or has not been mentioned. There is no provision for it in the Chequers agreement or in the Prime Minister’s position on the withdrawal agreement. It is referred to in the political declaration, but only in relatively negative terms. In effect, it says that people moving to other countries to deliver services will be covered by the rules of the host country. That means every single nation state, and they all have different rules for different services, different qualifications and different ways in which you put on shows in the cultural sector or appear before the courts in the legal sector. The European rules overrule that, which means that a Spanish lawyer can appear in a German court and an Italian violinist can appear in a Scottish concert hall, but each of those countries has its own rules, and if I read the terms of the political declaration literally, it means that those rules can be used to keep both those individuals out.
How we deal with services and the movement of people is bedevilled by the fact that ideologically and politically there are different attitudes to this, and they are in essence ideological and, if you like, instinctive. The liberal left regards this as an issue of human rights, citizenship and open access. The political right by and large regards this as an immigration issue of control, numbers and terms on which people enter the country. However, what the committee’s report and I are saying is that this is, in essence, an economic issue. This is a vital section of the British economy which will be absolutely stymied if we apply the rules which some people are advocating and which already exist for these groups of workers from the rest of the world or if the EU apply them to us.
I am not encouraged by what has been said so far about the focus of discussions. Even assuming for a moment that we reach some sort of agreement on a version of the withdrawal agreement and move into a truncated transition period after Halloween, we will not have a lot of time to sort out these issues because they are different in the different sectors. Some of them will depend on qualifications; some will depend on salary. For example, in this sector and most of the tourism sector a cut-off point of £30,000 a year will not be seriously helpful to many of the people who need to move around.
Therefore, my plea to the Government is, first, to reply in more detail to the noble Lord’s report and, secondly, to recognise that, whatever the political pressures on them, they should treat migration as a border control issue or a human rights issue, both of which are valid. In this context, the key issue for the future prosperity of these sectors is that it should be treated as an economic issue, and sensible and rational decisions should be taken on the future reciprocal migration arrangements with Europe.
I thank the noble Lord for his report. I underline its wider implications and look forward to the debate.
The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is the premier festival of new music outside London and is seen as being in the top five of new music festivals in Europe. The festival, of which I am now a trustee, absolutely depends on being able to attract musicians from across Europe. Last year, for example, the programme featured composers and musicians from the Netherlands, as well as the usual eclectic mix of musicians from across Europe. The festival reaches out to local people through, for example, a visual artistic exhibition from Switzerland in the indoor market and an exciting programme with schools in some of the town’s more deprived areas. All that will be made much more difficult for people who are extraordinarily talented but relatively poorly paid if the current government plans for free movement are not fundamentally changed.
The regions of our country that are more remote from London rely more heavily for a varied cultural experience on projects that have financial support from the EU. A topical example is the Stanza Stones, which have already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Jay. This project—poetry etched on to stones along the Pennines—was inspired by the new Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, who comes from Marsden, West Yorkshire.
Then there is the question of UK talent having the freedom to move quickly around Europe. Music has no boundaries and young musicians at the start of their careers need to have experiences in many different venues and work with talented people from different backgrounds. They may have opportunities offered at short notice. With restrictions on movement across the EU, those opportunities are also reduced.
Our shared European built cultural heritage absolutely depends on a shared approach to conservation. The tragedy of the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral is such an example. The restoration of that iconic building requires very skilled people who are in short supply. York Minster also suffered a devastating fire more than 30 years ago and has offered its skilled masons and conservators to help Notre Dame. Will that be less possible in the post-Brexit scenario? It will be more bureaucratic, it will mean more hurdles will have to be cleared and it will more than likely mean that the bonds that draw people together in cultural ways will be more restricted.
The solution to this unwanted scenario is clear in the report’s recommendations. Many people working in the cultural sector rely on their freedom as EU citizens to carry out short-term work in other EU countries. The recommendations conclude that the Government need to rethink the approach to workers in the sector, be it with their social security contributions, enabling preferential arrangements for EU-UK migration, or positively pursuing the idea that the sector came up with: that self-employed people in this sector be permitted to enter the UK for short-term engagements.
Cultural experiences are of fundamental importance to the well-being of individuals and communities. I urge the Government to adopt the recommendations to minimise the negative impact that any Brexit deal will have on the cultural life of our country.
The report highlights that the UK film and television industry alone contributed £7.7 billion to the economy in 2016. It also notes that, in museums, EU27 citizens accounted for,
“up to 15 per cent of the workforce”,
and that much heritage research in England has been,
“built around the model of free movement”.
According to the report, the City of London Corporation said that,
“the current non-EU visa regime would be ‘unsuitable’ for the cultural sector”.
Mark Pemberton, Director of the Association of British Orchestras, said:
“Unfortunately … musicians starting out in a career in an orchestra are not earning £30,000 a year”.
This is the threshold set by the Government’s migration White Paper. He continued:
“We are highly skilled but not highly paid. Sometimes, the people at the Home Office do not understand that. They assume that high skills equals high pay, and it does not in the creative sector”.
Would the Minister agree with that? Mr Pemberton also said that it was essential to bring in talent at short notice, including in an emergency if a lead singer or dancer falls ill or is injured.
The Arts Council highlighted very clearly the problem of barriers to ease of movement: 70% of respondents to its survey said that barriers would negatively impact their future and 75% told them that barriers would affect UK-based productions’ ability to bring artists and organisations into this country. The legal protections and frameworks that European Union membership provides are also seen as crucial to the industry.
The music industry alone contributes £4.5 billion to the UK economy. When the Incorporated Society of Musicians surveyed its members it found that 95% said that Brexit was a negative. Of the respondents, 85% visit the EU and work there at least once a year. The other aspect is that 77% of its members rely on the European insurance card. Every aspect of free movement is involved here. Two museum bodies said that,
“restricting movement of people could have a huge impact on the cost of museum exhibitions”.
One could go on.
In the food industry—the industry I deal with in my business on a regular basis—when the UK joined the Common Market in 1974, the country’s restaurants had a total of 26 Michelin stars. This year it is 163. This is because of the free movement of chefs and ingredients. What will it mean if we leave?
In the fashion industry, the Fashion Roundtable wants to maintain the single market, to continue involvement in EU cultural, educational and business programmes, and to provide legal guarantees. Some 96% of them would vote to remain and 80% of the fashion industry believes that Brexit would be bad for British fashion.
Going back to the musicians again, 39% of respondents travel to the EU more than five times a year. So this is not just free movement but free movement on a regular basis. Then we have carnets. If carnets have to be brought in, that will cost £1,000 to £2,000 per carnet. To put all this into context, three out of the five top-selling albums in the world in 2017 were released by UK acts.
Sir Nicholas Serota, the head of the Arts Council, said that the arts industry was such “an essential part”. It provides 360,000 jobs and £2.8 billion in tax alone. The funding from the EU that this industry is reliant upon is in the billions as well.
The Arts Council report, produced by ICM, concluded by citing:
“Negative impact of Brexit on UK reputation … Reduced freedom of movement”,
and its impact,
“lack of access to EU funding … Reduced freedom of movement of goods and equipment … Changes to legal and regulatory frameworks … Weaker … exchange”,
and “uncertainty caused by Brexit”. This is a catalogue of disasters.
I will conclude with an important point that the report highlighted: the whole aspect of immigration in more detail. Of course, we all know the famous Nigel Farage UKIP poster, which said:
“Breaking point: the EU has failed us all. We must break free of the EU and take back control of our borders”.
Noble Lords may remember that the poster showed queues of people. A number of politicians attacked that poster, which featured a photo taken in Slovenia. When Mr Farage is challenged on it now, he says that the Brexit Party would not use it as,
“immigration isn’t the burning issue of the time”.
Today, immigration is way down the pecking order of importance to people in this country.
Another report asked:
“What is to be achieved by ending free movement?”
The Prime Minister has said:
“We will do what independent, sovereign countries do. We will decide for ourselves”,
we will control immigration. The report states that David Jones, who was then Minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, said that it was,
“our ambition to regain control of migration”.
That was contradicted by Robert Goodwill, the Home Office Minister, who said:
“This perception that we do not control our borders … is not a correct perception”.
He said that we do not participate in Schengen, and that we also have checks; we check every EU national who comes in.
The report then makes an important point in referring to the emergency brake that already exists. Will the Minister acknowledge that the brake exists, from the EU directive stating that if any EU citizen stays for more than three months, does not have a job and cannot support themselves, we as a country have the ability to repatriate them? Many other European Union countries use this regulation, but we never have. Will the Minister admit that we have always had control over EU migration but have just never used it? Looking back, when people were surveyed at the time of the referendum, 45% felt that immigration was one of the most important issues; today that has dropped to 25%. When Europe is looking outwards to the world, we are now looking inwards. This is a disastrous situation.
I will conclude with this. Nigel Farage says that democracy is what this is all about—but hypocrisy is more like it. The referendum is three years out of date. I have spoken on food prices, Erasmus, the customs challenge, consumer protection, EU security, the threat to students and dispute resolutions. Every single time we see that Brexit is a disaster. The best deal we have by far is to remain in the European Union.
Secondly, music is an essential part of our national identity and must play a central role as an instrument of the UK’s soft power in a post-Brexit world, a point also made to the Select Committee by those representing museums, among others. If we end up leaving the EU, our musical heritage and worldwide reputation for musical excellence must inevitably form one of the most secure engines for future prosperity. I do not need to underline to your Lordships how extraordinary our musical tradition is, having nurtured some of the greatest composers and performers in the world and forming a powerful musical inheritance and national identity. We are today one of the few net exporters of music worldwide: one in eight albums sold in Europe during 2017 was by a British artist, generating billions of pounds of exports. Music is not just an international calling card, which we will need in abundance if we are to make any sort of future outside the EU; it also brings us millions of overseas visitors. In 2017, over 12 million people journeyed here for musical events. If we undermine the music industry as a result of Brexit and an end to free movement, we undermine our soft power too.
Our globally dominant music industry is vital, not just as an industry on its own but as the engine for the wider creative economy. Who are the people who make up this profession? The vast majority are self-employed, freelance or portfolio musicians, many of whom struggle with low rates of pay and therefore rely on such things as the European health insurance card, and who often take jobs all over the world—but mainly in Europe—at very short notice. That is the key point.
The excellent report published just this month by the Incorporated Society of Musicians, to which we have heard reference, showed that 85% of those responding to a survey had visited the EU and EEA for work at least once a year, with 22% visiting more than 11 times a year, and more than a third spending at least a month in those countries. For many, work comes at little or short notice; their livelihoods depend on their ability to travel easily and cheaply around multiple countries for work in a short period of time. For all of them, freedom of movement is crucial to their work. Undermining freedom of movement without anything to ameliorate it will, let us be clear, undermine music.
As we have heard, even before we have left the European Union, the impact is already being felt by musicians, as the ISM survey mentioned. For almost two-thirds of those who took part, securing future work in the EU/EEA is now the biggest issue they face, with more than 10% reporting that offers of work have been withdrawn or cancelled, with Brexit given as a reason, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said. We have yet, of course, to leave. That is a shocking figure, with real human consequences, and we must always remember that.
As well as getting themselves across borders, the vast majority of musicians also have to worry about the transportation of their instruments. Musicians frequently perform in different countries on consecutive days, and getting their instruments and equipment across borders quickly and easily is vital to their work. It is just as important as the mobility of the music workforce, yet most musicians believe that as a result of Brexit and consequently an end to free movement, it will become much more complicated. Things will be even more problematic for someone who has a musical instrument on the list of products restricted under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Wild Fauna and Flora.
Brexit will wreak its damage on the cultural sector, as the impact goes two ways. It is also about musicians from the EU wanting to come and work here. We need musicians and talent from the EU to study, teach and perform; they add incredibly to the rich diversity of our musical life.
I am particularly concerned about the impact of Brexit on our great conservatoires, such as the Royal College of Music. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, will add his weight to this issue. We need EU students to enrich our music, not least because they start to learn at a very young age and become highly proficient in a range of musical instruments, particularly woodwind. That is vital for putting together the orchestral experience and learning, which is the bedrock of a conservatoire education. At the moment, about 20% of our students come from EU countries and we need their talent because it simply cannot be replicated elsewhere. Yet at the moment the future of EU students at conservatoires is uncertain because we have no idea of the fee and student loan regime for 2020 and beyond. When students come here, quite rightly they want to be able to work but it is not clear whether they will be able to do so because of visa restrictions.
We also have to think about the impact of an end to free movement on the recruitment of teaching staff and the talent drain it would trigger. At the Royal College of Music we have many professors from the EU, some of whom come in to teach just one day a week. For them, too, freedom of movement is vital to go about their work. Because they are here for such a short time, there is no way on earth they could ever meet the £30,000 minimum salary threshold.
The Select Committee looked at a number of possible ways forward to ameliorate the situation, but by far the most effective and practical would be the introduction of an EU-wide, multi-entry, short-term touring visa, with a reciprocal arrangement for EU citizens. As the report rightly notes, that would allow self-employed musicians to travel for short-term visits between the UK and the EU in a frictionless manner. I strongly support this proposal—not only would it make life easier for the thousands of musicians who need to travel to and from Europe for their livelihood, it would send out the signal that we are not closed for business as a cultural and artistic nation.
In various debates and Questions in this House over the last few months, I have argued that music in this country faces an existential crisis because of the appalling decline of music education in state schools. That is not a subject for today, but a botched Brexit, where we fail as a result of blind ideology to deal with these issues that are so important to our cultural life, our creative economy and thousands of musicians whose art enriches our life, will make that existential crisis twice as bad. Let us avoid that at all costs and do all we can through flexibility, agility and imagination in our immigration and visa control policies to ensure that the place of music, the arts and the UK’s creative powerhouse is valued, nurtured and supported.
Finally, there is the uncertainty. We are starting to recruit now for 2020. When students ask, “What’s going to be the position if I want to work? What’s the position if I want to go to and fro from home? What’s our position when I want to get my instrument, which has got a tiny bit of ivory down there, through the ports?”, we cannot tell them; we do not know. The Government have not told us—they cannot even decide whether we are going to get Brexit or not and under what terms. We are completely bemused as to the future.
I turn briefly to orchestras. I do not really know where to start. The Arts Council Wales/Wales Arts International told the Select Committee:
“Any reinstatement of mobility restrictions … will create new borders … for the smaller-scale companies and artists such barriers might become insurmountable”.
That is in paragraph 44 of the report. I do not think that they were speaking in any way out of turn.
What is going to happen when a performer in London is taken ill, the only feasible replacement lives in Europe and you have to get him over here quickly, within hours? What happens if instruments of a certain kind are in short supply in a given orchestra and the only available capable musicians are in Europe? They will come nowhere near the £35,000 earnings limit that the Government have floated—or, probably, the £30,000 limit, because musicians are great talents ill paid. What about the uncertainty for our orchestras? Orchestral concerts are planned a good two years in advance—in the case of opera, four years in advance. What are they going to do now to get on with planning when they have no idea under what conditions those plans will have to be carried out? What about carnets? What about health insurance? What about insurance contributions? What about health itself? What about the funding that comes our way through Creative Europe?
I could go on and on—I could read my briefing if the House has several months to spare—but I hope I have said enough to show that Brexit is a fundamental threat, as much through the complete uncertainty in which the Government have left us as from the realities.
I am sure that no Minister would be so cynical as to say, “Who cares about classical music? A few people in the House of Lords, maybe. Yes, a few people go to it. Hmm—they do not care, we will get away with this”. They should think again. What about Glastonbury? What about WOMAD? What about Bestival and the Green Man? What about the huge, burgeoning music festivals, which are already reporting difficulty in recruiting the top acts they want? It will not be old fogies like us complaining; it will be the kind of people who have been on the streets in the last few weeks, determined young people who will not have their pleasure taken from them by this bungling, bumbling Government.
Others have mentioned how much the whole sector depends on mobility. Paragraph 44 of the report notes that plenty of musicians come from outside the UK and do 50 performances a year. Certainly, as you go through what is coming up over the next year at the concert hall in Perth, as I did over the weekend, you can see that a tremendous number of people are due to come into Perth from the EU and outside the UK.
Quite apart from mobility is the necessity for speed. The quotes on this from paragraph 38 of the report are very good. Early on, it says:
“The Creative Industries Federation told us that industries relied on a ‘rapid turnaround’ to access talent, often on a ‘same-day’ basis”.
Later, the same paragraph says that,
“it was essential to be able to bring in talent at short notice, particularly in the event of emergencies such as a lead singer or dancer falling ill or sustaining an injury”.
The visa system in place at the moment for third countries is interesting to analyse. Tier 2 visas are for specified jobs; there is a cap on the total number for general ones, and the £30,000 minimum hurdle. The trouble is that DCMS’s own figures say that 47.6%—a remarkably precise percentage—of the more than 650,000 people in the sector are self-employed, so tier 2 visas could not apply to them. The same goes for tier 5 visas because, once again, you have to have a specified job for them, which you would not have on a self-employed basis.
The Government’s White Paper on immigration from December last year said in paragraph 32:
“In accordance with the MAC’s advice, we do not intend to open sectoral labour schemes, except potentially for seasonal agricultural work”.
Accordingly, I thought it would be interesting to see what that advice had actually been. It was referencing the report of the Migration Advisory Committee from September 2018 entitled EEA Migration in the UK. In paragraph 36 of that report, above which is the title “Low-skilled workers”, its recommendation is:
“We do not recommend an explicit work migration route for low-skilled workers with the possible exception of a seasonal agricultural workers schemes”.
The MAC seems aware that many of the workers we are talking about might be low-paid but are most certainly not low-skilled. It is therefore a bit naughty in logic to use that recommendation in the way the White Paper has used it all round.
On the agricultural sector, I have nothing but praise for Defra. It has drafted a fantastically helpful four-page document called Employing EU Seasonal Workers After the UK Leaves the EU. This document is very clear and helpful. It also appears in Bulgarian, Romanian and what are called accessible formats. There is also an email helpline, which farmers whom I know and chatted to over the weekend said was incredibly helpful for setting out a future and meant that, at least for a couple of years—they can only go out so far—they know the exact position. You can plan as a business; you can talk to the people you will bring into your farming business; you can plan ahead. Remember of course that the agricultural sector is one-third of the size of the cultural sector, and it is not growing, because we cannot grow the amount of land in the UK. If there are special arrangements for that, and given that I believe the interpretation of the MAC’s advice is wrong and that its advice is therefore not inconsistent with having a similar approach for the cultural sector, there should be special arrangements for the cultural sector. I have no doubt that they will be very similar to the ones recommended by the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Jay. I have only one question: does the Minister agree with that analysis?
It is important to realise the impacts of all this on the economy and the Exchequer, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has mentioned. It is worth recalling for a moment a point that has been made by the Commercial Broadcasters Association about how a large number of commercial broadcasters who took advantage of the European licence in this country are moving to Amsterdam—I was there the other day, and I must say that I can see why you would move there. It seems that one of the great reasons behind the vote for Brexit was that we objected to paying money to foreigners, but the effect of this will be to hand out wads of tenners to the Dutch Government.
Then there is the question of the cultural experience for those of us here in this country, if I may put it that way. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, our culture is not ring-fenced by Britishness; it is linked to the other side of the channel. After all, we esteem van Dyck as one of the great painters and part of our cultural patrimony but, inconveniently for some, he was born in Antwerp. Some of the greatest images of the building we are in now were painted by Monet, who was not, as far as I know, an Englishman—although, since I gather that he stayed in the Savoy Hotel, he might have met the £30,000 threshold. There is an exhibition on in the Tate of van Gogh in London, and there is not the slightest doubt that had the rules now being proposed been in place, he would not have come and it would not be taking place. Several noble Lords have mentioned the appointment of Simon Armitage as the poet Laureate—a good poet, and I like his work. It is worth recalling that WB Yeats spent quite a number of years in London, and I do not think that he, as an Irishman, could do that any more. We will find that our cultural experiences in this country are degraded.
Finally—I do not think there is any need to elaborate on it—it will impact seriously on our soft diplomacy. Behind the situation now lies, as the report says, the four freedoms, which are at the heart of the concept of the European Union. I suppose that, as a supporter of the European Union, I am now very much out of fashion, but what we have been talking about has been an enormous benefit to our country and the people who live in it. As someone pointed out, the Government’s response to our changing circumstances seems to assume that everyone who comes here is a potential immigrant. In the case of cultural events, that is simply not true, because you cannot replace one person with another. No amount of training in the world would enable me to play a violin in a way that anyone else would wish to hear. It is as simple as that.
In the Government’s response is a picture of how they would like to see post-single market Britain relating to its neighbours. It indicates clearly how much damage may ensue. It echoes the mantra that the Government must deliver on Brexit but, after all, how do you deliver Brexit? There is only one way to do it, and that is to serve Article 50. We have done that. Once the Government have served Article 50, they are freed from the shackles of European law about how they conceive the future. It never was and is not now a vote for a no-deal Brexit; it was a vote for a future where the Government can exercise their discretion in a slightly different way from the past, which does not mean that we throw overboard everything that has gone before. In that, we have complete sovereignty, complete freedom to try—if we can succeed in negotiating it and getting others to agree—to do what we want. That should be pursued in the national interest.
If we look forward to the next chapter, that seems to me to be the role, prerogative and duty of the Government. They should cast aside,
“all private interest, prejudice and partial affections”,
in trying to bring that about. My noble friend the Minister got it right earlier in Question Time when he mentioned reciprocity. Is it not strange that reciprocity is being chucked out of the window?