Artist Visas

Debate between David Linden and James Gray

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. It is a particular delight to see an east end boy in the Chair.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

To clarify, that is the east end of Glasgow, not London.

[David Linden]

There is only one east end, Mr Gray. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), who secured this debate and has for quite some time been pursuing this issue, which is clearly significant for Edinburgh, where the festival has just finished.

On a cross-party note, I congratulate the Minister on taking up her new role. Since I came to this place in 2017, I have always found her to be incredibly helpful in my dealings with her. It is encouraging to have someone in the Home Office who we can hopefully work with, because for many Members, including those from Scotland, immigration makes up a huge part of our case load. It is clear that there are ideological problems in the Home Office in how that policy is pursued, but a lot of it seems to be cock-ups. It is good to have the Minister in her role, and I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

Once again we find ourselves in the frustrating position of coming to Westminster Hall to discuss visas and how cumbersome they are. Only a couple of months ago I led a debate about religious worker visas, and during the recess I spoke to a lot of Catholic priests in my constituency who are incredibly frustrated by the UK Government’s approach to religious worker visas. I appreciate that that is another issue for another day, but I certainly hope that the Minister will be able to look at that again.

One of the things that is incredibly frustrating about the situation with artist visas is that it is just another manifestation of the hostile environment from the UK Government. That is particularly frustrating for us in Scotland, because we do not view immigration policy as somehow being a negative issue. Our problem has never been immigration; our problem has been emigration. I get incredibly frustrated that we have a UK Government who are pursuing this ideological policy of pulling up the drawbridge, shutting off the border and stopping people from coming here.

There is an economic problem with that, and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith outlined some of that. The Scottish Government in particular have problems with the policy. The Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop, said:

“The Scottish Government has long-standing concerns about how easily artists and performers can come to Scotland for the Edinburgh international festivals, and about the problems that delayed visa processes...and refusals that are then overturned—

on appeal—

“can cause organisers of festivals of all sizes.”

My hon. Friend outlined the difficulty with the number of people who decide not to come, which is clearly distressing. As I would expect her to do, she talked about the situation in Edinburgh, which is of course Scotland’s lesser city. I will turn now to Glasgow.

Glasgow is already an innovative creative leader in Europe. With artists travelling on a visa, it allows art and talent to come and be shared with us in Glasgow. If anybody here has not taken part in or not come along to see Celtic Connections, I encourage them to do so. Celtic Connections is one of Scotland’s biggest creative events. It attracts and has hosted 2,000 artists from 25 countries taking part on 35 stages across the city. To give an idea of how economically significant that is, in Scotland we have more than 15,000 businesses employing more than 70,000 people, contributing more than £5 billion to the Scottish economy. I get frustrated because we clearly have initiatives to try to get people to come to Scotland—homecoming, Celtic Connections, the Edinburgh festival—but the Scottish Government have one hand tied behind their back because of the ridiculous visa problems that emanate from the UK Government.

There are two solutions. Unionists thinking slightly more longer term might say, “Let us have a form of regional immigration policy where aspects of the policy can be devolved and decided by the Scottish Government. We can tailor that to our needs”, as has been outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith. If the UK Government are so intransigent and do not want to look at regional immigration policy and devolving certain immigration powers—for example, for visas—the only solution left is to go on our own path towards independence. It is telling that last night there was a poll in The Times that showed that if a general election takes place, which we in the SNP would certainly relish, we will find that not only do we have a hostile environment from the Home Office, but ultimately Scotland will be a hostile environment for Tory policies that have a negative and devastating impact on our economy. I very much look forward to the day when we can have that general election and indeed independence to sort out these issues for ourselves.