Arts and Creative Industries: Freelancers and Self-employed Workers

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I must declare my interest as a freelance composer and broadcaster. Freelancers are, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Clancarty, the backbone of the UK’s art forms in the cultural industries, which raise £109 billion. Without them, film and television production would quite simply collapse so, as I think the Government recognise, we must nurture them. I welcome the new paper that the Government have come up with. Yet Covid, Brexit’s effect on EU touring, particularly in cabotage, and the drawing in of the economy have meant a terrible lack of security for this sector. Despite the Chancellor’s generous help during the pandemic, many freelancers fell through the net, especially the disabled. Could the Minister and his colleagues look at this in case, God forbid, there is a repetition of the pandemic so that we are in a better place should that happen?

In doing so, the Minister will doubtless talk to his esteemed colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. On Monday, she said in reply to me that there is a problem in getting recruits for training musicians and for teaching. This impacts on schools because it is where the next generation will come from—the next players in our orchestra and the next teachers in our schools. We need to make sure that we nurture them. After all, if we cannot, we will be encouraging migration, because we will have to import teachers and musicians for our orchestras from abroad. That surely runs counter to the Government’s policy.