Touring Musicians: EU Visas and Permits

David Warburton Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and it is a pleasure to follow the Mother of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). I congratulate her on her words, on her continuing efforts in this area and on securing this important debate.

We should not be having this debate. It is endlessly amazing to me that the public consciousness, the media and the press can, day after day, follow the intricacies of fisheries and the arguments over the European Union and fishing rights, for example, but the music industry, which employs more people than the fishing and steel industries combined, hardly gets a look in.

We ought not to be having this debate because this should have been wrapped up long ago, but, on leaving the EU, the trade and co-operation agreement very much focused itself on goods rather than services, so cultural touring was left a little behind. I know the Prime Minister has openly committed to working flat out to solve the problem, and progress has been made, particularly this week with Spain, but we have a long way to go. The problem is not only the practicalities of UK musicians, artists, crew and creatives from other sectors touring the EU, but the perception that this is a niche, side issue and not one that we need to firmly address.

Looking at the facts, employment in the music sector has dropped by 35%, with revenues almost halving in the last year. We were riding high before the pandemic. The sector grew by 11% in 2019, far beyond the rest of the economy, not only dragging the rest of the economy behind it, but flying the flag as well, by demonstrating the creative skill of the UK.

The EU is our most vital market. The European Commission itself said that UK acts “dominated the European panorama”, and that must continue. In order for it to continue, the uncertainties around cabotage, carnets, visas and work permits need to be resolved, not only in a purely logistical sense but because without the certainty, as we have heard, that comes from knowing that artists, orchestras, musicians and all their retinue can travel freely and work, it is impossible for them to book ahead and have the confidence to look forward.

Any work in any EU member state is still restricted. Although we have had good news and there may be only six EU member states with which we now need to organise work permits, we are still restricted to 90 in 180 days over all member states. For example, Austria allows only four weeks of permit-free working and Poland allows only 30 days for every 12 months. There are other restrictions. Any musician playing in France must be employed by a registered venue, and might be required to register in the host state.

The costs are also prohibitive. The cost of a Greek visa is £68 per person, and then there is the £300 cost of a carnet for an unaccompanied instrument. We are talking about hundreds or even thousands of pounds once there are a significant number of musicians to get on the road.

Then there is the cabotage. UK trucks are allowed to make only three stops, which is logically impossible and ridiculous. As we have heard, we are losing jobs as hauliers move from the UK to the EU. We have no carnet waiver agreement with the EU—which we need. Musicians need to source carnets well in advance of travel and get them physically signed off by border officials. EU musicians do not have to face that on entering the UK. That means that, while established artists or large orchestras can probably manage the mountain of paperwork, tick all the boxes and get on the road, artists who are starting out, new or breaking new ground really do not stand a chance. That means that we will see a further decline in the future dominance of UK culture; our future will not be as successful as our past.

I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on music, and next week we are beginning an inquiry into these very issues, taking evidence from every part of the industry and, I hope, getting some pretty major stars as well—to sparkle the thing up. I know that conversations have been had and I understand the difficulties of negotiating with 27 member states, but we have to have clarity, fairness and equity for cabotage, cultural waivers and visas. If we do not solve the issues that the industry is experiencing, we will not only harm ourselves and the industry through even more unnecessary stress and job losses to the EU, but we will lose talent, lose our influence, lose our upper hand and—importantly—lose our leadership on the international stage.