Musicians and Creative Professionals: Working in the European Union

Question for Short Debate

Asked by

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the ability of musicians and other creative professionals from the United Kingdom to work and tour in the European Union.

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the concerns of creative professionals on touring and working in Europe. I thank the Government for extending this debate to an hour and a half. I am grateful for the briefings from the Incorporated Society of Musicians, UK Music, Carry on Touring, LIVE, the Association of British Orchestras, T&S Immigration Services, the Contemporary Visual Arts Network and the House of Lords Library. I am pleased that we will have contributions to this debate from across the Committee.

In practical terms, as the Incorporated Society of Musicians and others have been at pains to point out, this is, above all, about trade. As such, it is something we should all be concerned with. In pre-pandemic 2019, music alone was worth £5.8 billion, almost five times as much as the fishing industry at £1.4 billion—which is also, one has to say, now sadly suffering the effects of Brexit. Live music is a key aspect of music, making bands’ reputations abroad and stimulating sales. According to the Featured Artists Coalition, in 2019 UK acts played four times as many gigs in the EU as in the US.

It is great to have live music and the arts more generally back and largely up and running on our own shores, with Glastonbury, the Stones, Adele, the Proms this month and much more to look forward to. While I suspect that most of the focus today will be on music, concerns about working in Europe are being felt across the creative industries. I will touch on the visual arts, which is my own background. I ask therefore that the Minister looks carefully at the new Arts Council-funded report, International Connections, produced by a-n and the Contemporary Visual Arts Network, which makes some important recommendations. I ask him to look carefully as well at the forthcoming All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music report, Let the Music Move, addressing similar concerns for the music industry. It would be excellent if the Minister could attend its launch in Parliament, on 19 July.

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Earl. I am sure that I speak on behalf of everyone in the Moses Room when I thank him for presenting this case so clearly and firmly and for straying beyond music, because this is not a problem that is limited to music and musicians.

When I am travelling and I am asked what my nationality is, that is easy: it is British. What is my identity? It is English. But what is my civilization? It is European. We are all part of the great continent of Europe and nothing that was said or done on 23 June 2016 alters that fact. I am not going to make a long, rambling speech saying that we should put the clock back to 22 June, tempting as that would be, but we have to have a constructive and proper relationship with the other nations of the European Union and with those nations of Europe that are not members of the EU.

This is a challenge to the new Government. We have been going through a turbulent time in recent months and particularly in recent days. It is important that we grasp the opportunity of a new beginning and try very hard indeed to urge whoever has responsibility in the new Government to do so. I will be entirely delighted if the Minister for the Arts remains in his present position, but this morning when I asked another Minister in the Chamber about a caretaker Prime Minister and all the rest of it, I was told that that was above his pay grade. The fact is that we are moving towards a new Government. There is an opportunity to restore integrity in public life—that absolutely essential quality that has been more notable by its absence than its presence at the highest level in recent months and years.

I hope that we will try to have a constructive and productive relationship with our friends—and they should always be our friends—and allies in the European Union and the rest of the continent. We have had the most terrible reminder in the past five months of how fragile peace is and how important and fragile democracy is. Every day that the Ukraine war carries on should indicate to all of us what is at risk.

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl and congratulate him on securing the debate. It is very timely, for a reason that I will come on to. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—I am almost tempted to say that it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, because it has occurred once or twice so far. When I heard the reference to Handel, I thought, “Well, Handel did not need a visa to come here.”

I also ought to say what a pleasure it is to see a Minister still at the Dispatch Box. In fact, there are two Ministers here today. The subject of today’s debate is music and it is the second time in two hours—I will be honest about this—that the consequential damage of the vote in 2016 is being brought to your Lordships’ attention. Less than two hours ago, a Question was raised in the House about Horizon Europe, the co-operation between scientists here and around Europe, and the damage being done. Here we are talking about the damage to musicians of not being able to tour in Europe as easily as was the case. Whatever else noble Lords may feel, I do not think that anybody voted on 23 June 2016 to inflict the type of damage that is being inflicted on British science or music, which are being sacrificed on the altar of the Northern Ireland protocol. Of course, music in particular is truly international.

I am indebted to the ISM and the Library for their briefings, which all noble Lords will have received. I always find the Library briefings helpful. As the noble Earl said, we are talking about an industry that is worth nearly £6 billion in economic terms.

I should declare an interest, which is what propelled me to take part in today’s debate. I am grateful to the government side for increasing the length of the debate, because I saw that I would have only two minutes—well, my two minutes are already up. I am grateful for a little more time. The point I want to bring to your Lordships’ attention in this debate—I hope the Minister will feel able to say something about it in reply—is the hugely damaging effect on young musicians. The interest I have to declare is that I have two children. As they grew up, from the age of five they learned to play musical instruments—my daughter Emily the violin and my son Daniel the cello. I do not think they can remember life without playing musical instruments. In the course of growing up, they were members of colleges of music but also a youth orchestra, which I hope I am allowed to name: the Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Brown with such distinction for so many years. Growing up, they went on tours to Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Belgium. A lot of work goes into organising such tours. These are not professional orchestras, and people have to do it voluntarily. Money and time are spent going out to reconnoitre the best place to go. You can imagine all the work involved in enabling a youth orchestra to go on tour, including a huge great bus and space for the instruments.

She.

As she grows up, I hope she will learn to play music and get the benefit of that. There are incalculable benefits from going on tour in Europe.

My time is up now. Many of the other things I planned to say have already been covered, and no doubt will be by others, but this is about the future. I think the noble Earl referred to the pipeline of the future, and that is the point I want to bring to your Lordships’ attention today. It matters just as much for the future of music and musicians touring as for established orchestras today.

My Lords, I follow on from the noble Viscount, who talked about youth music. First, I declare my interest: I am the chair of trustees of the Parliament Choir, which will be touring in Europe in the next year, along with professional musicians and the outstanding Southbank Sinfonia, one of the primary postgraduate training orchestras in the world, based around the corner here in St John’s Smith Square. So there is an interest in this Parliament in getting this issue correct, and it is very important for us all.

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for introducing the debate. We heard from him that this is a major industry for this country, worth £5.8 billion and employing more than 200,000 people. It is worth more than fisheries and steel combined and now faces issues on the right to travel and work across the European Union. Of course, it is cabotage, work permits, carnets and whatever else that are the difficulties. These permit difficulties are the main source of problems, which are costly and lengthy and can differ from country to country. The Incorporated Society of Musicians has given an example of a five-piece act. The performers were unable to carry their instruments with them, and to play a concert in Greece would have meant an additional £700 per person to perform. To recover that from a performance is obviously a major deterrent to the music business.

I understand about the cabotage limits causing us problems and the dual registration of vehicles. If I were to put it to anybody looking at this from the outside, I would simply say that the new regulation, which is a UK regulation alone and therefore has no convergence with EU rules, is that a company or body can register a vehicle inside the European Union, house it, drive it over here, change the number plates, get the load on board, change the number plates back and drive it across to Europe. But for many people that is not how instruments are moved across borders. It impacts greatly on the source of income of the music industry.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Clancarty, not just on securing today’s debate but on his energy and resilience in keeping these matters so firmly on the agenda. The nature of this QSD means that this debate is inevitably structured in the form of a theme and variations, which is probably fitting giving its relationship to music. My noble friend has comprehensively set out so many of the themes in his excellent speech; all we have to do is extemporise on one or more of them in our allotted time. But I will attempt to do a little more, suggesting ways in which the current dissonance might shift towards consonance and even resolution.

The extent of the challenges resulting from the omission of any provision for the touring of creative professionals and their support staff has been masked to date by the pandemic. But, as touring starts up again, we are seeing tangible evidence of impacts across four key areas.

First, the absence of a universal visa waiver agreement means that different EU members can treat UK artists and their staff in different ways, creating a complex and costly regulatory landscape, particularly in the case of multi-country tours. Secondly, the costs associated with an ATA carnet are proving to be prohibitive, especially for larger operations such as orchestras, whose instruments and equipment can be valued at millions of pounds. Thirdly, cabotage restrictions, as we have heard, permit only three internal movements in the EU for UK hauliers over 3.5 tonnes—disastrous when tours cover multiple countries over weeks and months. Dual registration does not provide a solution for ensembles with a single, purpose-built touring vehicle which cannot create the required EU base. Finally, CITES requirements for musical instruments containing protected materials can prevent last-minute bookings, which are often the things which provide vital career breaks.

The creative sector has been working hard to propose solutions to these challenges. It has put forward a cultural exemption, applied reciprocally, to cover cabotage, CITES and carnets, and suggested a bespoke visa-waiver agreement to allow visa-free working for 90 in 180 days across the whole of the EU and UK—something many countries already offer. Some small steps have been made—I am sure that the Minister will refer to them in winding—but progress has been lamentably slow over the two and half years since the TCA was signed.

My Lords, like others, I thank the noble Earl for bringing us this debate. Noble Lords would expect a Bishop of Manchester to be passionate about music. Our vibrant popular and contemporary music scene is central to our local economy. The Royal Northern College of Music is one of our universities and we also have the leading music school for the north of England in Chetham’s, whose campus is next door to my cathedral and provides many of our choristers. We recently dedicated a brand-new, £2 million cathedral organ. It was the donation of a single—as it happens, Jewish—businessman, Sir Norman Stoller. Our music matters to us in Manchester. We invest in it and in the diverse young people developing their skills in it. It is a great force for levelling up.

However, the issues that the noble Earl has brought to our attention are affecting the Church considerably, including our cathedral choirs, parish churches and school choirs. I am not the first Bishop to raise these matters. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and, before her, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester have been raising them since at least 2018. They were promised much, but we have seen little by way of change.

On behalf of the nation, the Church maintains a unique tradition of English choral music. We host hundreds of concerts, music, theatre and arts events in 16,000 parishes and 42 cathedrals. The Church is part of Britain’s shared cultural heritage and supports thousands of professional and amateur performers, who bring shared cultural experiences to local communities. It has been levelling up the arts for centuries and providing opportunities for hundreds of young artists in our schools, churches and cathedral choirs to gain musical training. These choirs and organists often tour across Europe in the summer. It plays a significant and vital role in fundraising and supports a continuation of the musical foundation within the Church and our ability to offer scholarships and opportunities to children and young people, not least in rural and deprived communities. My cathedral is at the heart of a very deprived part of Manchester.

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for securing this debate. His determination over a long 18 months to improve the ability of UK musicians to work and travel in the EU is much appreciated by all of us here today, on both sides. I also thank the Minister for his commitment to music and his belief in the value of music education and the importance that it plays in creating a pipeline of talent for the creative industries.

I declare my interest as chair of the advisory panel for the new national plan for music education, as a council member of the Arts Council and as governor of Shoreditch Park academy, which has a wonderful music tradition.

I am delighted that the talent pipeline has been raised today. That is what I would like to talk about. It gives me an opportunity to say a few words about the music education plan, which I hope some noble Lords will have read—for anyone who has not read it yet, I hope that they will now. It has just been published and it has been described as ambitious. Yes, it is. I think that we should be ambitious for our young people, particularly with regard to music education. We must ensure that all children, irrespective of background and circumstance, have access to high-quality music education.

We set out in detail in the plan how we can enable all pupils to learn to sing, to play an instrument, to create music together and to have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents, including professionally. Every parent must now be absolutely clear, from the plan, that music is a statutory subject in the curriculum and should be taught as robustly as any other subject. Music is not just a nice-to-have extra; it is an essential part of every child’s education.

Every head teacher in primary and secondary has the power to put music at the heart of their school. Thousands already do, working within their budgets and using, sometimes, the pupil premium. Every child should receive an absolute minimum of one hour per week of music education in the classroom. Every school should have a music lead or head of music. Every school should have a music development plan for every pupil and a progression plan for those children with passion and commitment to realise their potential.