Arts and Creative Industries: Freelancers and Self-employed Workers

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a publisher, producer and freelancer, as per the register. Boiling my contribution down to two minutes, I would like to make the following points, bearing in mind that the world of publishing may be more gentlemanly and gentlewomanly than other sectors.

Researching for this debate, I found that over the last three years my firms have used 29 different creative freelancers from around the world over 144 projects. As a creative freelancer, I have been contracted five times on five different projects, again worldwide. The conclusion is that the market is growing and global; it is a totally free and self-regulating market, where the creative freelancers set their Ts and Cs depending on their desire for the work, what the market will bear and how they choose to build their client relationships. Their clients choose either to accept these terms or not, and I see no reason at all for third parties to intervene in these private arrangements.

The disadvantage of being a creative freelancer is having to deal with that which is the very opposite of creativity: administration, form-filling and dealing with bureaucracies, whether private or public. The Question asks how the Government can help creative freelancers. The answer is: by demanding from them as little as possible. The best single way to help the UK’s freelance self-employed is to reform, or ideally abandon, IR 35 and stop nailing us through unfair NICs and other welfare policies and irregularities.